Corporate Culture and The Sociopath

[Dover]

I was ruminating on the angry, righteous remark by the CEO of BP about
wanting to get back to his insulated life, while standing amidst the devastion his company brought to the Gulf, and I remembered the following article by Thom Hartman. At first reading I remember being struck by
the thought that such a small percentage of people were making huge decisions for the rest of us and the nation, and even more disturbing....just how sick of mind that small pool tended to be.
I mean, if we had to determine the best course to take to save our dying mother, would we seek out a sociopath for advice? Ludicrous!
And yet that is who we are entrusting with our children's future well being and that of the planet. Who's the insane one!?

However as I think about it, in truth there certainly seems to be plenty of evidence to suggest that this 'pool' is much larger and not as exclusive as we'd like to believe. Rather than these sociopathic tendencies being strictly symptomatic of a handful of CEOs and contained within a rarified corporate culture, it seems to me to be a systemic problem within our entire culture. What is the cause? Or perhaps even more pressing, what is the cure? Some more thoughts about that later. For now, here is Hartman's article:


Profiling CEOs and Their Sociopathic Paychecks
by Thom Hartmann

The Wall Street Journal reported last week that "Executives and other highly compensated employees now receive more than one-third of all pay in the US... Highly paid employees received nearly $2.1 trillion of the $6.4 trillion in total US pay in 2007, the latest figures available."

One of the questions often asked when the subject of CEO pay comes up is, "What could a person such as William McGuire or Lee Raymond (the former CEOs of UnitedHealth and ExxonMobil, respectively) possibly do to justify a $1.7 billion paycheck or a $400 million retirement bonus?"

It's an interesting question. If there is a "free market" of labor for CEOs, then you'd think there would be a lot of competition for the jobs. And a lot of people competing for the positions would drive down the pay. All UnitedHealth's stockholders would have to do to avoid paying more than $1 billion to McGuire is find somebody to do the same CEO job for half a billion. And all they'd have to do to save even more is find somebody to do the job for a mere $100 million. Or maybe even somebody who'd work the necessary sixty-hour weeks for only $1 million.

So why is executive pay so high?

I've examined this with both my psychotherapist hat on and my amateur economist hat on, and only one rational answer presents itself: CEOs in America make as much money as they do because there really is a shortage of people with their skill set. And it's such a serious shortage that some companies have to pay as much as $1 million a day to have somebody successfully do the job.

But what part of being a CEO could be so difficult-so impossible for mere mortals-that it would mean that there are only a few hundred individuals in the United States capable of performing it?

In my humble opinion, it's the sociopath part...cont'd

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/07/27

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[Fumesucker]

1. Nah, there's plenty of sociopaths to go around..

They sit on each other's boards and give each other huge compensation packages..

It's the old sociopath's club, it really is as simple as that.

Watch that show Undercover Boss sometime, most of these guys are totally incompetent to do the job of their lower level employees, it's really comical to watch them blunder around.

[Dover]

3. Sounds like that show makes you feel safer and more empowered

Non-threatening corporations. Kinda like that
bumbling idiot they put in the White House. Just someone you might
have a beer with or even feel superior to. Not to worry.



In fact I can't watch T.V. anymore as so much of it evokes a visceral gag reflex (the same reaction to watching or listening to Bush). On the one hand there is a phoney emotionalism served up in sappy, feel-good, all American 50's retro-style...ah, all is right with the world. Is that just a symptom of a disconnect with authentic feeling? It has the feel of a false
evangelism that is sensationalized for effect, manipulative at best.

And then there are programs that seem to revel in abusive behavior.
It' easy to imagine a network programming team made up of misfit
egomaniacle young boys stuck in a cruel adolescent phase where tripping up the fat kid, eating worms, or bludgeoning with verbal abuse is
entertainment, or even 'reality', not to mention cost saving and profitable. So is digging through the garbage for food scraps if nourishment is no biggie. The more numb we become the more they turn up the volume and
press the limits of the grotesque as the new normal.
Is t.v. being produced by the same corporate culture that was revealed in those audio recordings captured of the phone conversations by Enron employees as they gleefully poked fun at those suffering from the California energy crisis they created?

I see it embodied in the contorted, frozen smirk of disdain on Cheney's face and his diseased heart's controlled pace....an organ that must seem such a useless and inefficient weight and measure when assessing value on the scale of a global chess game.

Pretty soon corporate CEOs won't have to hire P.R. firms to manage their vapid soulless image because they'll be preaching to a choir of perverted reptilian adrenaline-addicted facimiles with ADD clicking compulsively on their joy stick in one hand, while sending abbreviated texts, punctuated by turrets-like outbursts - "nothin' personal, jest bidness". No rules in this non-regulated game but one - the ends justify the means. And that end is profit.

Maybe this madness is the monster in the basement that slowly creeps up the steps and devours a sleeping nation near its end, a merciful last act of nature to cull the sleeping wounded, minds weakened by a diseased soul.
They say there was lead in the water in Rome - some historians' explanation for a nation of Caligulas. But I wonder if the ancients were drinking from the same pool of poison as our own? Drinking the poison together, a cult of consensus, in despairing acknowledgement that the reality one has created
has run it course...we end game.

Reset.

Take heart

[Fumesucker]

8. I don't even own a TV..

But it's impossible to completely avoid TV in our culture, I've seen the show a few times when sitting with friends or family.

[Dover]

10. Sorry for the rant.

Not at all directed at you. Was just trying to point out the socio-pathic
elements of that medium. Not sure whether it's due to the same corporate
culture that produces it or reflective of cultural decline.
But like you, I think many have been moved to simply toss out their t.v.'s.

Not that the kinds of connectiveness offered by the web is any more conducive to or indicative of 'reality', authentic exchanges, intimacy with the natural world, etc. I've often wondered if it actually increases our insulation from the real world and each other. But there I go again off on a rant...

[phantom power]

4. True, although his point about "sociopaths with the right background and expertise" is good.

Plus, you know, when it comes to sociopath CEOs, There Can Be Only One :-) Be on the lookout for the sociopath runners-up in upper management!

[inna]

2. kr

[Greyhound]

5. K&R, despite several glaring errors. n/t

[metapunditedgy]

6. Does the same apply for politicians? n/t

[damntexdem]

7. There's the sociopath, then there's the corperopath.

The latter makes the former look good by comparison.

[blindpig]

9. Capitalism encourages and rewards antisocial behavior

It empowers such individuals beyond the dreams of monarchs.

Kill capitalism