Many democracies have encouraged their citizens to behave like narcissists, for two reasons: Most of our leaders are narcissists, and capitalism rewards narcissists in particular and sociopaths in general. This is not good – the narcissists-in-charge care only about themselves, not us or the nation. And a narcissistic nation will tear itself apart, as we are doing.

Narcissism is the root cause of many of our biggest problems, from climate change to inequality to war. Narcissists are supremely self-centred. Their brains formed differently from ours, it is permanent, and as a result they think and act very differently from us. They see other people as useful or not, as prey or dangerous, but never with love or empathy because they have none. 90% of people who have had a relationship with a narcissist – work, business, romantic, personal – show signs of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

They can build big companies and are often deliberately selected by the Board of Directors for their grand vision and relentless drive towards it. However, sooner or later they must either remove the narcissist as CEO or he’ll run the company into the ground. Elon Musk may yet do this with Tesla.

Capitalism was Made for Narcissists

Capitalism is inherently evil because it rewards what normal humans consider evil. Under capitalism, the more wealth a man hoards, the bigger a star he is, even if he harmed countless people to make his fortune.

Behind every great fortune lies a great crime.

Honore de Balzac

Capitalism doesn’t care how someone makes money, it just rewards making it. As a result, if it is cheaper for a rich man or the corporation he controls to corrupt the government than to compete honestly, that is what he’ll do. That is what they have done. The US is a de facto oligarchy and has been for some years.

Socialise the Losses, Privatise the Profits

If it is cheaper to pollute than produce cleanly, corporations will pollute. If there’s more money to be made in outsourcing, that’s what they’ll do – and have done. Even though the executives knew that their American employees would be laid off and unlikely to ever find work that paid as well, with benefits and a pension, they lobbied to do so anyway.

Even though the executives knew that the overseas factories were paying poverty wages, that they were polluting the local area and literally poisoning people, they did it anyway. In reality, the executives did it because of this. They knew damn well that many people would be harmed, many permanently, and they did it anyway.

Why? What kind of decent, caring person would do that? If you were an executive and you discovered that some other firms were lobbying for outsourcing like this, wouldn’t you lobby against it? Wouldn’t you ask your fellow CEOs where their loyalty to their fellow citizens and country was? Where their decency was?

Many Executives are Narcissists

And if they’re not, they behave like it. The Bible for executives is Atlas Shrugged and their Jesus is Ayn Rand. They worship the Almighty Dollar and care only about themselves. They lobbied for outsourcing and the right to pollute, and they got it. Here’s an example from England:

The environmental performance of England’s water companies is so poor that the Environment Agency (EA) has called for prison sentences for chief executives and board members whose firms are responsible for the worst pollution.

If you’re wondering what decent human being would do this…you’re right, no decent human would. A sociopath would, and narcissists are a type of sociopath. They have no conscience and feel no guilt, they only want what they want.

Capitalism is Inherently Evil

There is no such thing as ‘compassionate capitalism.’ That’s a con to make us believe that rich people will be decent people who will do right by others and the country. They won’t as their primary loyalty is to their money. There is no such thing as ‘corporate social responsibility.’ This is a con to make us believe that corporations – which are legally required to seek maximum profit and are run by narcissists – will not pollute even if there is more profit in polluting than not.

Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work together for the benefit of all.

John Maynard Keynes

Capitalism rewards the worst kind of people. As Jim Stewartson said in a recent post, We Sort the Psychopaths to the Top. The prime virtues of capitalism are selfishness and greed. How’s that working out? Well, billionaires have profited brilliantly from the pandemic – pandemic profiteers – while the rest of us have been going backwards.

These people are driving climate change and gross inequality, and they have suborned the US and other governments to allow it. The rich are also funding right-wing extremists with the goal of overthrowing democracy and installing a white supremacist fascist ‘government.’

A Narcissistic Nation

The result of having a political-economic system that rewards narcissists is the creation of a narcissistic nation. Hyper-individualism is expected and rewarded. Competition is valued over cooperation. There are winners and losers, and losers are treated like dirt. People who sacrifice for the nation are suckers and losers. Why? Because what kind of loser would risk his own life for anyone or anything else?

Narcissists are profoundly selfish and they are trying to create the world as they see it: competitive, dog-eat-dog, losers get conned and left behind, he who dies with the most toys wins. They don’t give a damn about their own children (except as they reflect on the parent), never mind yours or mine or future generations.

Narcissism is toxic to individuals and to societies, and it is destroying ours. Sociopaths say things like “There is no such thing as society.” It’s so obviously wrong, yet they believe it because that is how they see the world. Because we have allowed sociopaths to dominate most positions of power, they are recreating the world in their own image.

Narcissists in Charge

Here are some examples:

• Millionaire preachers who live in mansions, have private jets and servants, and preach Prosperity Theology, the opposite of Jesus’ teachings. Pedophile priests and the bishops who protect them.
• Hypocritical politicians who say whatever people want to hear in order to get elected, and then spend their time lining their pockets.
• Scheming executives who use their corporation’s power to glorify themselves and to attack the government. The proportion of sociopaths as CEOs is roughly the same as the proportion of sociopaths in prison.
• Wall Street banksters who pursue wealth by any means, including lying, cheating, and corrupting the government.
• Climate deniers who know the truth but lie anyway. There are plenty of fossil fuel-funded ‘think tanks’ that intentionally spread mistruth and attack those telling the truth.
• Large corporations are sociopathic by design, and the executives who run them are legally obliged to operate like sociopaths.
• Billionaires have many Dark Triad traits, and they act on them to destroy government, laws, anything that stands in their way. Most billionaires are really oligarchs.

These people and the organizations they control care only about enriching and glorifying themselves. They do not, and cannot care about anyone else because their brain is simply lacking the parts that make us human. They are not fully formed humans.

The End of a Narcissistic Nation

It should be obvious that no country can survive if it’s people become so selfish that they only care about themselves, not their fellow citizens or their country. Narcissists have no loyalty to anyone but themselves. Nobody will risk their life for their country because only ‘suckers and losers‘ do that.

The United States is a narcissistic nation at a turning point, and it may be too far gone. Americans must decide if they are going to continue to be ruled by evil people who are looting their country and have no loyalty to it. But the evil people have gone a long way toward making their rule permanent. Many are traitors aiding Putin and Russia to dismember the United States, others are simply useful idiots.

Americans have been led to selfishness by narcissistic leaders. They have become toxically selfish as a people and as a result are tearing their own country apart. They reject human decency. They turn a blind eye to others being harmed because narcissists have convinced them that those others are less worthy because they are Black/Indigenous/poor/losers/woke. No narcissist would ever be a Good Samaritan unless there was something in it for him.

The Rise of Goodness

Good Americans are reacting, finally, to the assault on decency waged by the sociopaths who rule them. There are far more decent people than sociopaths, and that is why they focus on dividing and conquering by any means that works: race, class, gender, education, ‘woke’ – whatever it takes.

The sociopaths have greatly damaged American democracy and they are still working daily to ensure that they ‘win’ no matter the results of elections. Even as good people begin to band together to elect decent humans, the sociopaths are rigging the rules in favour of themselves.

If Americans want to reclaim their democracy, to have a decent, fair, honest country, they must cast out the narcissists and sociopaths and all they have wrought. They have worked their evil values of selfishness and greed into every aspect of society. All must be exposed and destroyed. Billionaires should be taxed out of existence. Giant corporations are evil by definition – they seek profit above all else – and must be nationalized, broken up permanently, or in some cases shut down.

There are people who see the danger and who know what to do – progressive politicians and activists who put forward policies to reduce inequality, to rein in corporate power, to tax the rich fairly, to produce without polluting, and so on. These people and their ideas are an existential threat to narcissists and that is why they demonize progressive, decent humans.

Which side will win remains to be seen.