It's the Pathology, Stupid
As recession looms, this might be a useful time to examine the psychopathology on which our economic system rests. We view becoming a billionaire, for example, as the pinnacle of success. But let's face it, anyone who needs a billion dollars to maintain his self-esteem is one sick puppy.
Pathology is a matter of degree. If a man enjoys violent sports we don't consider him neurotic. If he has violent impulses that cannot be discharged in a healthy way, however -- impulses that are contained, but disturb him -- we send him to a therapist. And if he cannot contain those impulses, so he is a danger to others -- if he feels compelled to get into barroom brawls, for example, or abuse his wife -- we expect him to put in some jail time if he doesn't get psychotherapy.
Similarly, if someone lives in the expensive house he buys, makes use of all the rooms in it, wears the expensive clothes he buys, sails around the world in his yacht, no one would consider him neurotic. It may take more money to make him happy than it does the average person, but there's no more reason to call this pathology than there is to apply the term to someone who's happy living in a tent in the woods. Using money to buy pleasure, while often unsuccessful, is a legitimate strategy.
Where this veers into pathology is when the money and the possessions are not consumed, but exist only to bolster the ego, to assert one's self-worth, or to attempt to compensate for some deep sense of deprivation. When H. L. Hunt was the richest man in the world, for example, a friend said of him that "he always felt poor in his own mind," and similar sentiments have been expressed by other famous billionaires. To own houses that are rarely occupied, yachts that never leave harbor, luxury cars that are never driven -- these are signs of deep pathology and should be recognized as such. When money is spent only to acquire status symbols, or to achieve power over others, we're in a situation similar to the man who cannot contain his violent impulses: the pathology is having a deleterious effect on others.
For pathological greed is not a private matter. When billionaires avoid taxes, the burden falls on high school teachers and steelworkers, while our children's schools are underfunded and health care is out of reach for millions of Americans. When Wal-Mart pays its employees so little that they qualify for public assistance, American taxpayers pick up the tab. While the pathologically greedy have been getting their fixes, non-neurotic Americans are working harder than ever and making less money than they did 30 years ago. People who are addicted to money typically feel no satisfaction in it unless they know they're forcing someone else to feel as deprived as they themselves feel.
Hoarding money, like hoarding power, or hoarding bottles of liquor in hiding places around the house, is a sign of dysphoria -- an inability to achieve contentment or satisfaction. Nothing is enough. Even too much isn't enough.
Like those addicted to tobacco or heroin, the money addict has a hole in his ego. No matter how hard he tries to pump it up, his ego keeps leaking, and he has to have more money, more status, more power, more fame.
Americans tend to act as enablers to money addicts. Most Americans believe that becoming a billionaire is an index of achievement rather than a symptom of pathology, and tend to be envious of, rather than disgusted by, the most grotesque and pathetic excesses of the pathologically needy.
Yet the idea that bottomless greed is a kind of pathology is so threatening to our individualistic ideology that it can never be dealt with seriously. People typically fend it off with humor, "I wish I had Rockefeller's neurosis!" or, "If only I could get addicted like that!" They make fun of the idea that money can't buy happiness, and feel that they themselves would be exceptions to the rule.
Money can, of course, buy freedom from some kinds of unhappiness, but that's as far as it goes, by definition. Happiness, after all, is feeling things are great just as they are at this moment. Happiness, in other words, is not wanting. Yet our entire economic and social system is founded on people wanting things -- on our population being discontented, envious, unhappy. If Americans were happy and contented, our entire economy would collapse. Our economy depends on finding ourselves wanting.
Joy can't be purchased. It can't be acquired. It can't be achieved. You either experience it or you don't. Most Americans don't even know what it is. They think the kind of elation you feel when you win a game, or a contest, or come into some money, is joy. But joy isn't something that's caused. Joy is something you wake up with. And not just in the morning.
Americans need to wake up and recognize a disease for what it is.
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"If Americans were happy and contented, our entire economy would collapse. Our economy depends on finding ourselves wanting." And when we don't depend on retail therapy? Then what will our economy be based on?
Rich people. I feel your pain. Help is on the way. We must TAX THE RICH TO SAVE THE RICH. Tax them hard. Tax them often. Say it out loud. TAX THE RICH. Feels good doesn't it. Call it tough love. Put it on a bumper sticker. TAX THE RICH!!
basically agree with the authors points, but one disagreement is that even if one has a lot of money, and utilizes/consumes a lot, that is not inherently moral in this age of environmental degradation and threat. we must also be ecologically conscious. taken to extremes, what good is a billion dollars in a lifeless, barren wasteland?
more on the pathology of capitalism in the
following paper called "fractional reserve banking as economic
parasitism"
http://eco
endorsed by two phd economists. printed in nexus
magazine, 60k world circulation. #1 top downloaded
economics paper. used by economics
teacher in australia as standard classroom material.
more info on request.
recent supporting material:
The Shock Doctrine: Naomi Klein on the Rise of Disaster Capitalism
http://www
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man: How the U.S. Uses Globalization to Cheat Poor Countries Out of Trillions
http://www
John Perkins on "The Secret History of the American Empire: Economic Hit Men, Jackals, and the Truth about Global Corruption"
http://www
Video, senator/pres candidate Dennis Kucinich
at last years 2005 Monetary Reform Conference
http://www
Money as Debt, video by Grignon
http://vid
Erich Fromm said it all long ago, and much better. I'd recommend everyone take some time to read ... well, practically anything by him.
Then wake the hell up. Greed is killing the planet.
SMdM
I really have no problem with people getting rich. I just don't want to get downsized so my boss can trade in his Gulfstream IV on a Gulfstream V.
May I point out that some of the most wealthy are that way because they love what they are doing and are good at it? Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Steve Jobs seem to LOVE what they do, and money seems to be the result, not the reason.
Of course, they may be the exceptions, and they are certainly a bunch of the rich or wanna-be rich who are pathetic excuses for human beings, but that is not a reason to lump them all together.
What is "Pathology
My friend, a therapist of some renown, and I were discussing this, specifically, who are these elites, these privileged, entitled, self important masters of the universe who feed off the rest of us?
His take was that, just as in nature, we have at any given time 50 or so serial killers running around the country. They are what they are. They live their lives according to precepts that make total sense, to them. And, like autistics who are wired differently, but not psychotic, they do not subscribe to our beliefs about life, murder, death. And all the therapy in the world will not change them!
The ultra-wealthy are like those people. They don't operate on the same feelings or morals and their sense of entitlement is complete. What they do must be the best for everyone else, because it is best for them. No nasty doubts, questioning of rightness or wrongness. They do what they do because they can, and that reinforces their belief that they are superior. It really IS all about them. It does follow bloodlines and, yes, nurture plays nearly as large a role as nature, so the culture in those families remains fairly air tight. By their standards, and unfortunately, by many of ours as well, they are successful.
There is garden variety greed and excess that makes us trample grandmas at Christmas sales and take on way too much debt. But the naked lust for wealth and power at the levels we are discussing, is no different than the bloody religion of the Maya. We can hate it, but we diminish its true threat if we call it pathological.
I kind of feel that the compulsion that drives individuals to power, or the need to accumulate wealth has more to do with fear than anything else.
Why does a 70 year old CEO need a multimillion dollar compensation package? It's absurd ... the individual is approaching his biological expiration date ... nothing changes that. Wealth is no hedge against mortality.
And mortality is what chronic amassers fear. The only opponent that can't be bought off. The only opponent unimpressed by their achievements ... Death.
I'm sure ego plays a part as well ... because what Lord can stomach the thought that his revered name is flanked by mere peasants on the Reaper's bitter list.
Google "Manufacturing Consent" for some insights on how marketing and media perpetuate this pathology.
Are we not dealing with a Pleistocene mind in completely foreign world? A world that is testament to our cleverness? Future shock. Obesity. Aggression against those who are different. Aren't these the results of our reach exceeding our grasp? Don't these traits reflect our evolutionary history as much as a pathology? Or are they the cause of the pathology?
I contend that Homo sapiens is stunted in the realm of cognitive wisdom. The brain matter just isn't there to mitigate greed and other holdovers from our evolutionarily old limbic system. Individuals are short in terms of foresight, morality applied to all people, understanding of how the world actually works, etc. Unfortunately, our institutions, which might have provided the wisdom of the crowd, have not evolved to compensate for individual human mental frailty.
When democracies actually recruit wise leaders and follow their leads, I will believe there is hope. But the track record in the US is not good. One word that doesn't come to mind in thinking about the current crowd of president wannabes is not wise.
V.
It is sad that we have the evangelical example in the white house, of the ultimate
in greed
Mr Slater:
Thanks for exposing one of the elephants in our nation's living room. But we can't find a cure unless we also are willing to take long, honest look at ourselves. This pathology is pervasive: After 9/11 Junior urged us to go shopping; Trump and his vulgarity are widely admired; people vote against their own economic interests in solidarity with the elites; our government is an instrument for the transfer of taxpayer money to the wealthy.
But I need look no further than my own family for symptoms. My parents are well-to-do, but there will never be enough money as far my mother is concerned. Her pathology hurt the family and continues to do so. We lived in nice homes and were well educated and well traveled but otherwise lived like poor people: My sisters and I attended school in ill-fitting, cheap clothes; one sister was accepted into Harvard but mom succeded in blocking her matriculation; mom stole our inheritance from our grandmother.
But the biggest damage to us was spiritual because at its base this a spiritual malady, just like addiction. It's based in a sense of deprivation of the mind and the body; it's a starvation that results in malnutrition of the self.
And this disease is contagious. My mother was its victim and in turn its vector. So we came into adulthood suffering from its effects. No amount of money could fill the howling hole within. But happily by sheer luck I found a way out. It has involved learning to live spiritually. This my deprivation has been replaced by abundance and the sense that the universe is generous.
Today, while I know I will never completely heal, I live modestly and abundantly in the knowledge that I have everything I need. And I am content. Fear of financial insecurity is mostly a thing of the past. Sadly my mother and many souls in this country, including our 'leaders', are still desperately and futilely trying to get their 'wants' meet.
Billion dollars? I'd cheerfully settle for a measly million to put a grin on my face!
My Dad tries to live his life this way. We've never had a lot of money, and we're very hard workers in my family. I used to make jokes about the self-help books Dad was always reading. But now, as I'm older, I see that he lives with contentment and peace - always trying to bring and keep that joy in his life. He's a mailman and there's an elderly lady on his route that can't drive, so he goes to the grocery store for her once a week. She always gives him handfuls of coupons and he has to go after work, during the rush, and try to find the items w/ the coupons, or try to figure out what else to buy. It's not like he looks forward to it, for sure. But he tells me that after he's done, he feels so good about himself for the rest of the week that it's probably a better high than sticking a needle in his arm or making a great trade in the stock market. He is a great calming and peaceful presence in my life.
There are some people in this world who do good because it makes them feel good. There are others who only feel good when doing harm to themselves or others. Pathology indeed.
AS Bud Fox asked Gordon Gekko in the movie "Wall Street," "How many yachts can you water-ski behind." This is the same sort of illness that leads some people to have so much trash in their houses they have to tunnel through it. Perhaps if we recognize this illness, we can shame these folks into therapy. That just might lead us closer to social and economic justice.
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Posted January 30, 2008 | 01:36 PM (EST)