I'd like to add some additional reading....

A recent (2011) up-dated version of the original book, by the same author plus et al --
SNAKES IN SUITS: When Psychopaths Go To Work by Robert D. Hare Ph.D., Paul Babiak Ph. D. and Todd McLaren.
It gives a point-by-point list of what to look for. Be somewhat afraid, though, for some readers it might be like looking at your reflection in a mirror. :)
Our Great Leader fits the bill in every detail.

And a video to back that up...

http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/video/search/harper/highlights-harper-accepts-world-statesman-award/1866635685001

Why stop there?

As long as insurance companies are required to do the heavy lifting, let's make 'em really earn their premiums.

Abolish the limited-liability corporation. It's long outlived its usefulness. Allow sole proprietorship or unlimited partnership only. Shareholders also bear the responsibility for debts and malfeasance, just like they should.

And insurance companies will willingly bear the reasonable risk, in return for an appropriate premium. It's the perfect market solution!

And it solves the other problem of how to get rid of that other psychopath, the limited-liability corporation.

Insurance is like tax you pay

Especially private insurance. Looking back on all the house, car and boat insurance I have paid over the years, I might be further ahead to forgo it and just pay the cost when the damage happens. Least I would be in control. Cut out the middle man. It's not as though they have ever done me much good. Have a legitimate insurance claim like when somebody breaks into your house or the wind deposits tree limbs and puts holes in your roof? The insurance companies will do every weasel in the book to get out of paying and then immediately raise your premiums. You go from being their best customer to being a suspected criminal in the blink of an eye. One thing when they advertise to get your money, something entirely different when you have a legitimate and honest claim.
'Insurance is a premium you pay to con artists in the completely false hope of reimbursement should things go wrong'
Shakespeare or somebody

Remember when

I had a house in Ontario where I wasn't resident. My neighbour; who was Greek and among the 5% or so who will honestly help you if you know them, sent me an email saying that some tree boughs had blown onto the house roof and made a hole. Had to be fixed, so I got him to hire somebody to fix it and then put in the insurance claim. They ran this way, and they ran that way, what they never ever did was put up the money to pay for the damage. Got so long in the tooth that I eventually got tired and absorbed the cost myself. Private insurance companies suck.

@Zalm

find myself in the peculiar position of agreeing with you. Not in regard to insurance companies who are limited liability companies just like the other ltd. companies you descry, but when you say:
"And insurance companies will willingly bear the reasonable risk, in return for an appropriate premium."
You ignore the risk of an immoral market which will force even the honest companies to adopt immoral and indeed illegal policies (if you will forgive the pun) to survive in the current paradigm.

Insurance companies couldn'tt do anything

It would be a discriminatory practice against the mentally challenged.

It is politicians who should

It is politicians who should be tested, first of all, because they have far more power over life and death, than bankers.

And as Okanagan says, our Great Leader, born without conscience, with mental illness written all over him and his actions, should be first in line. The guy has been giving me the creeps ever since I first saw his photo as one of Manning's lieutenants.

Albeit, it should be done in writing, unanimously, with a number of others, hiding their identity, because people in power have enough brains to give false answers.

I've spent a lot of time in the homes, offices and boardrooms of business VIPs and realized even 40-50 years ago that many of them were dangerous nuts.

The world has always been run, governed and dictated by psychopaths and, if anything, globalization and the free movement of capital, gave them more powers to do more damage. In the past with arms, now with the perceived power of imaginary money.

Ed Deak

It's a good idea but

There's a flaw in the thinking. I think the reason the invisible hand is invisible is because it's imaginary.

You can't possibly expect regulators to regulate this because they are themselves infiltrated by many psychopaths. Just look at parliament, the US congressional behaviour, the insurance industry itself. All exhibit very troubling characteristics.

And it seems clear that psychopaths recognize and support one another, even from a distance. The Guardian reported that British bankers were using the Psychopathy screening instrument to find people to hire.

Mr. Deak is right, they have always played their role, and the fact is that the current free trade philosophy, based on Ayn Rands Objectivism is almost certainly conceived and designed by a psychopathic thinker.

The thing to remember is that psychopaths hold people with emotions or loyalty in contempt. They believe themselves to be superiour beings, and the rest of us to be nothing at all but prey. Rather stupid prey at that.

If we must trust the good faith of insurance executives to save us from this invasion of the soulless ones who are now controlling our world, we might be waiting a while.

What we need is a way to identify and mark these people, and a code of ethics with real teeth to stop them in their tracks.

Just please don't expect them to write it for you, or enforce it if you write it for them.

I wish they would

Insurers could decrease their liability when it comes to fraud and other financial, social and environmental crimes perpetrated by corporate executives. They could but they haven't.

It was very clear in 2008 just how far these financial and corporate psychopaths had gone but little tough legislation nor tough insurance premiums have been forthcoming. Instead of penalties these psychopaths received rewards in the form of bailouts and hefty bonuses.

You would think the insurance industry would come down hard on the oil and gas industry especially after Enbridge's Michigan pipeline disaster which cost the insurance companies a minimum of $700 million. Instead they have spread their losses amongst all policy holders rather than go after those whose directions led to poor management of that pipeline.

In Italy, professionals can be held criminally liable for their acts or rather misdeeds.

In any case, any action by insurers to refuse coverage of certain questionable executives within a corporation will be met with an army of lawyers and lobbyists (the ones who finance political campaigns). These actions would effectively tie-up any moves to protect us from corporate psychopaths for years perhaps even decades.

In fact, these same psychopathic executives appear regularly in front of US lawmakers to plead their case for limiting the amount of awards or penalties an injured party can receive and even limiting the amount of premiums an insurance company can charge on certain risks.

Psychopath

Maybe we should look inside ourselves for psychopathic behaviour. Realize that our thoughts can be just as helpful or harmful as our actions. Another example, somebody drops a $100 bill, how many people would hail them and return it, how many people would just quietly put in their pocket.
Why do we elect politicians the clearly show psychopathic behaviour?

Studies may show that

Studies may show that psychopathy is linked to physically abnormal amygdalas, and only 1% show “emotional deafness”, however, what percentage of the rest of the population, who don’t show “emotional deafness”, also have these abnormalities?

If you focus on “psychopaths” long enough you will eventually fit them into a list with common characteristics and traits.

The only reason psychopaths are considered “medically impaired” is because they are pathologized in the DSM. If it’s in the DSM it justifies its existence It’s more likely that their behaviour is the result of physical and/or mental impairment.

Corporate Psychopaths

Psychopaths rise up through PUBLIC companies, as they are the best sharks in the pool operated by equally psychopathic directors. Small private companies are rarely built by psychopaths (there are exceptions: Rockefeller, Gates, ... ) because small companies have to attract talent slowly & cannot offer excessive salaries to keep people working for a criminal.
The October issue (2012) of Scientific American features a story by Kevin Dutton with the same (bizarre) title as his recent book 'The Wisdom of Psychopaths' (p. 76) that describes a recent scientific study comparing the psychological profiles of corporate execs, psychiatric criminals & hospitalized criminals. "The analysis revealed that a number of psychopathic attributes were actually more common in business leaders than in so-called disturbed criminals." And we have allowed the Neo-liberals to organize a world in which these real criminals command our economy!!

Balanced Polymorphism is not Dead

"After 100,000 years of human history, only one per cent of the general population exhibits this affliction -- indicating that it is more parasitic than powerful."
Not so fast! Just because a trait is rare does not mean that it is all is due to genetic mutation. Some genetic traits can be maintained in a population by natural selection -- a balanced polymorphism.
How better to keep Huns or Visigoths at bay than to have socio/psych-paths in seats of power in the political and military complexes? Harper's "newfound" interest in our present and past military exploits might mean he is expanding his horizons. Oh god, I need an aspirin.

Here's one for you Codger:

What society, past or present, best exemplifies an "all psychopath" society?

@Hakuin

I don't know about an "all psychopath" society, but organized priesthoods must be pretty heavily enriched compared to the population at large.

Insurers Guarding Against Psychopaths?

Isn't that like putting the fox among the chickens?

I've had the misfortunes of dealing with adjusters completely devoid of human empathy. There are few positions so potentially manipulative as insurance adjusting.

Maybe if we pay them enough

And keep a gun on them they'll be the best predators to eat all the other predators. Afterwards we can ship them to low orbit and space them. :)

Look in the mirror!

our system encourages climbing uo the ladder of opportunity --- and shit on the people a rung below!
so we are all guilty!
I would have a hard time to point out 5 decent people from all my friends and acquaintances!

SO, yeah those on the top are the best at stepping on others, but we idiots glamourize them along with "celebrities".

Psychopaths or psychopathic institutions?

I've been long fascinated with psychopaths (and sociopaths) - the main difference between the two being causation, psycho = genetic component, socio = environmental causes. Martha Stout ("The Sociopath Next Door") claims that the incidence of sociopaths is 4 in 100!

The idea of using insurance policies to weed out psychopaths is interesting, but probably ineffective in the long run. As Stout points out in her book, there is a cultural component to the way psycho and sociopaths behave.

In North America and, to a lesser degree, Europe, where there is a strong "me-centric" culture, where individual rights and wants are generally more important that societal, "we" values, the incident of psycho/socio pathologies seems to be markedly higher. In Asian cultures, where there is a strong emphasis on "we-centric," shared community values, family values, honour, etc., the incidence of psycho/socio pathologies is considerably lower.

Stout thinks that this is party due to the reinforcement of values coming from the culture itself. Most psychopaths are born to regular people, who do their best to inculcate values, but if the larger culture, through a myriad of things like movies, music, books, etc., pushes a more "me first" message, the psychopath simply ignores the family values. If, however, the larger culture supports the family values, it is more likely that the psychopath will intellectually internalize social norms.

I tend to agree with Joel Bakan's assessment of corporations ("The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profits and Power" available in print, as a full length documentary, and an audiobook). He argues that the corporations are legally mandated to act like psychopaths, because they are legally required to put the bottom line of shareholders first before everything else. As Bakan notes:

"... we asked Dr. Robert Hare, a psychologist and internationally renowned expert on psychopathy, for his views on the subject. He told us that many of the attitudes people adopt and the actions they execute when acting as corporate operatives can be characterized as psychopathic. You try “to destroy your competitors, or you want to beat them one way or another,” said Hare, echoing Roddick and Barry, “and you’re not particularly concerned with what happens to the general public as long as they’re buying your product.” Yet, despite the fact that executives must often manipulate and harm others in pursuit of their corporation’s objectives, Hare insists they are not psychopaths. That is because they can function normally outside the corporation 'they go home, they have a warm and loving relationship with their families, and they love their children, they love their wife, and in fact their friends are friends rather than things to be used.'”

Bakan, a legal scholar, suggests that we need to look to regulations and the legal mandate of corporations to address this problem.

Psychopath exec's

Let's not stop at corporate executives.

Let's start doing assessments on politicians as well, since the lines between public office and corporations has become so blurred.

It's hard to believe that we put a police candidate through a battery of psychological testing before handing out guns and badges, but someone like (for example) Stephen Harper can wangle his way to the big chair without passing any mechanism beyond a dysfunctional voting system.

So then this is learned behaviour?

PostHypnoticPress; That is a very intricate explanation of a very intricate phenomenon. I have some observations, or maybe questions that you might have insight into.

For example, it is clear that corporations lobbied, wheedled and demanded the legal personhood on which the argument that they are pathological rests.

There was a long time in which they were dedicated companies, equipped with specific charters of purpose, which they were mandated to adhere to. In this way they fulfilled a purpose, just like any other institution and one could figure out whether they were successful by seeing whether they were fulfilling it.

Then after they achieved personhood they became able to buy and sell other companies and corrupt the chartered purposes of them, as well as their own.

Insurance is a good example. It was a socialist scheme for sharing risk and ameliorating disaster, basically because society is very vulnerable to damage from disaster. Everybody pays a share of the actuarially determined risk, and then nobody must bear the disaster alone. All bear it together. A nice human piece of prudent co-operation.

After personhood, insurance companies became financial institutions, at least in their own estimation, and took as their main purpose to avoid paying the cost of the risk, while still collecting the contributions of the people who still feel the need for prudence.

It's a big difference, but one that was sought deliberately by officers and executives. It's a way a basically break-even scheme could be made to produce profit, which could be taken as though there were an actual product being produced.

I offer New Orleans as an example of the fact that there is no insurance coverage for disaster in the United States any more. There are lots of insurance companies though, who don't feel embarrassed at all at not fulfilling their purpose.

I know that societies tend to take on aspects of the characters of their leaders, and ours are very corrupted. Is that what you mean?

Because if so, you get a very horse and cart sort of situation. We're psycho, because they're psycho, and they're psycho because we are.

I think I prefer the invasion of the money snatchers explanation. The other sort of requires way too many of us to be ill for me to want to buy it.

Why should there be any change......

....when they have it as good as they do? Change implies conscience or enforcement. Psychopaths have no conscience, and the only methods of enforcement are run by yet more psychopaths..........

Ha ha yeah right

I don't know where you get off thinking insurers aren't just one player in the bullshit casino. Fannie May, Freddie Mac, and AIG: all insurers that took long bets on trillions in shaky policies and needed massive bailouts when the whole thing popped in 2008. These companies don't grow if they don't tender policies. They're speculators to the nth degree, and took risks as big as any that the bankers took. Without gambling on the part of insurers, there wouldn't have been a financial crisis!

Moreso, a core assumption of your argument is ridiculous: do you mean to tell me that the insurance industry doesn't attract psychopaths? The people who's job it is to say "no," in any way they can, to the sick and ruined, despite being obliged to do the opposite? Who have done so scandalously and demonstratably forever? If any industry relied on heartless operators, it would be the insurance industry; why wuld they lead the way to change?

What a laugh.

Good article, this reality

Good article, this reality should be front and centre in the media and in our minds. Hopefully society will develop a certain militancy against these failed human beings and eventually eradicate them from positions of power and influence. The state of the world reveals their presence amongst us. Especially we should scrutinize the .0001% and what they're up to.

What we should scrutinize is

What we should scrutinize is who or what gives the right to the .0001% for their actions ?

Once they commit their crimes it is too late and we have thousands of years of history to prove it.

Yet, the answer is always the same: "faith" and human gullibility. Never fails.

Ed Deak.

This is just a terrible article . . .

Probably the worst case of speculative fishing I've seen on The Tyee. Shame on the writer and shame on the editors for letting this one through. The credibility gap between what the writer supposes and what actually goes on in the real world is huge.

Now, you would think that Mitchell Anderson would give us a quote from some of the underwriters willing to employ various forms of psychological profiling in order to weed out psychopaths from the corporate hierarchy. But such a quote is conspicuously absent. Even an unsecured quote - the oft-used anonymous 'industry insider'- is missing from this article. Without any evidence from the insurance industry presented, why does Anderson expect us to believe that insurers would be willing to use such profiling in the first place?

The whole premise of the article relies upon insurers being both willing and able to employ psychological profiling to identify and isolate psychopaths. Anderson fails to provide even a shred of the flimsiest evidence that any underwriters could do so. As such, the article presents readers with a poorly written speculative and juvenile blog posting.

I expect to see this sort of writing in The National Post - or from Margaret Wente - not from The Tyee.

Who gets tested first.

Heard another interpretation of the difference between psychopaths and sociopaths; the psychopath feels no guilt for hurting others and the sociopath feels uncomfotible, but does it anyway.

It might be good if these head honchos had to take at least the same police background checks as so many public servants and volunteers do.

Ideally, the more responsibilities, the deaper the background verifications ought to be. CSIS gets a thorough going over.

Still, power over time can twist.

Some wish we could read each other's minds. Then there wouldn't be any crime.

I don't want to read anybody's mind and I don't want anybody in mine.

But recent brain research is reaching beyond just understanding of basic functions, to behavioural correlations. Not so sci-fi anymore.

For the most part, we don't have surveilance in board meetings, conference centres, country clubs
or golf courses where so many decisions are made. That exposed, 47% speech was a good chunk of Romney's loss.

So why would anyone think that such brain activity detection capabilities would be applied to the twisted suits ahead of the rest of us?

psychopaths?

Psychiatric diagnosis is hardly an exact science. There is nothing stopping any average joe from exhibiting psychopathic traits if that's what is required to succeed.

I think it would make more sense to address the corporate structure that promotes psychopathic behaviour and favours self-promotion over skills, intelligence and ethical/legal behaviour.

Perhaps insurance companies could declare systemically psychopathic corporations altogether uninsurable...

Be fair richneal

This problem of psychopaths in control is large and growing. It's also extraordinarily hard to approach. If this is a brain abnormality or birth defect as it seems, then anti-discrimination laws would apply.

This article isn't precisely speculation, and the insurance industry doesn't currently do anything about it, and nobody claims they do.

But, given how hard it's being to get a handle on this problem, this suggestion of a possible control is very welcome. Structurally, this solution might actually be doable, and it's the first proposed action I've heard that might.

Clearly the fine details would be worked out by regulators when they start regulating again, presuming 17 Trillion dollars in losses is sufficient evidence of the failure of self-regulation as a policy.

I think it's a good opinion piece, and I think it starts a good conversation, which is always the beginning of a good outcome.

That was also an interesting web site, Hakuim

Psychologists have suggested that the personality of a person is established by the age of two. That would seem that if that child is destined to become a psychopath he or she would already show some of the traits by then. If we could nail down the symptoms at that time, and treat them, it would certainly save us a lot of possible trouble caused by that person in the future.

suppose:

suppose a one hundred percent reliable genetic marker for psychopathy is discovered. Suppose it's cheap enough to screen the entire population. Suppose we establish as a fact just what humans are psychopaths at birth (or even before birth if genetic analysis of the parents predetermines it - to open yet another can of worms)

What do we do with them?

We need to have some faith in medical miracles

Once some sort of gene has been established as being the problem, then we need to work on a cure, which might be as simple as an operation, or an innoculation.
For the time being, when people are taught how to spot a psychopath, or psychopathic behaviour, such a person, if young enough, should be evaluated and treated with psychiatric help. Until then, we simply have to wait until that person either hurts someone else, or hurts himself vis a vie, that young person in Ontario who kept trying to commit suicide until she finally did.
You have a good question, which needs to be answered by experts in the field -- and there don't seem to be too many out there who are willing to make the judgement.

aDriftwood

"You ignore the risk of an immoral market which will force even the honest companies to adopt immoral and indeed illegal policies (if you will forgive the pun) to survive in the current paradigm."

Well, I didn't say the paradigm was complete, but I'm not clear if I understand you here. Is the risk that honest companies (nice oxymoron, that) will have to purchase insurance even if they know it won't protect them, simply to play by new rules? Or is it something else?

My intention was also that insurance companies also be restricted from limiting their liability in the same way any other corporation would be - how can one make an exception for one class of corporation? - and their investors and policy-holders would bear the risk of unlimited loss.

D'ya think that might go some way toward making people very careful about where they park their money, and what oversight they provide when they do?

I'm certain there'd be some individuals, not to mention corporations, that simply couldn't get a dime's worth of insurance on the bubble-gum stuck to the CEO's shoe.

I'm with PHP

"As [Martha] Stout points out in her book, there is a cultural component to the way psycho and sociopaths behave."

Anyone who doubts that has clearly never been a regular at minor hockey league games. Inculcation of unsporting behaviour, showboating and bashing the competition has as long a history in Canada as Tim Horton's does.

What I'm not sure about is, "as goes the man, so goes the corporation"..... did I get that the right way around, or should it be the other way? In other words, if we alter, restrict or punish the form and status of the corporation, will that alter the pathology of the worst psychos who run them? Or do we have to address the psychos first?

I believe the former (I'd have to, given what I said in the first paragraph), and further, there is now the ability for some to conduct an interesting experiment to test this. Maryland a couple of years ago became the first state to charter the Benefit Corporation
www.bcorporation.net
as one way to make corporations more responsive to their original charters. It's not perfect, but it's a start, and from their perhaps it can be built upon.

Which is why I reject the absolutism of rational dogmatics. We got into this mess by lowering ourselves into the pond an inch at a time. Those who want to leap out quickly are sure to lose their footing and drown.

Hakuin

"suppose a one hundred percent reliable genetic marker for psychopathy is discovered. Suppose it's cheap enough to screen the entire population. Suppose we establish as a fact just what humans are psychopaths at birth..."

What are you trying to do - invoke Godwin's law?

@Zalm

First, as Fiat happily demonstrates, there are still some honest companies extant. Of course in keeping with the theme of the article, the larger the company the less likely it is to be bothered by morality. (as it is logically more likely to be run by psychopaths and thus more likely to be successful, which incidentally is exactly how our current capitalist fake money system works. Fake money, fake democracy, but real work for half the year to support the freeloaders - all tied up with BIG, GDP, ECONOMIC EXPANSION and all the key words for bull shit which Fiat has pretty well documented. Not going into politics here but social democracy has always been the best venue for the average citizen in every country. In this country when we used the Bank of Canada to finance our debts we had a much higher standard of living and could finance really good health care. When that was abandoned in 1974 things started going downhill and have been ever since.)
It's not new rules, it's the same old rules further degraded as psychopathy reigns ever more supreme with representative democracy with no control. Much like Microsoft degraded Javascript and even HTML in their efforts to gain a monopoly over the internet for their browser. [It didn't work because people flocked to firefox, chrome and even Opera, which is perhaps the best and fastest browser. I know when I use other browsers I drum my fingers waiting for things to load.] Now Microsoft has had the idiocy to adopt an os designed for ipads and iphones as their main desktop system (windoze 8, if you want to go through the agony of evolution with Microsoft one more time. If you don't you should stop at windoze7 which is the only decent os they ever made - wait 5 years until windoze8 is no longer as beta as win 3 was.). ROTFLMAO, it is pleasing in every respect. They copped a lot of it from the latest Ubuntu os, never noticing that people hated it and abandoned it in droves.] And that's a pretty fair analogy to the present political climate. In BC especially where corporate contributions are unlimited and are the only thing which has kept the Liberals in power. They will make hugely unpopular deals with China for campaign contributions, all the while telling us that they are improving our operating system. Nothing could be further from the truth.

@Zalm

If only I were as smart as you! Except, this system of democracy which you support has proven a failure all over the western world. We are insulated here in Canada because we have so many natural resources which our government can give away that it almost seems we are a success! We are not - if we owned it; and we should because we suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous weather (at least here in Northern BC) and we definitely suffer the disadvantage of representative democracy and the concurrent worsening health and education system which could not have been better designed for alienating people who would like to depend on it for themselves and their families. So many lies, and so little room to maneuver, no wonder the rich are taking all they can before the damn breaks. It is particularly evident in the States where they no longer even pay lip service to their constitution. Of course it is a little different here in BC because frankly, people are a little cloudy somehow. Don't know if it is the weather or the rain or ... the media.

I agree with zalm, for the most point

... and I preface this by saying I've not read all the comments. Anyhow, accountability is the system problem of our times. Nobody is government or operating behind the protection of a corporation, as a rule, has to be the least bit accountable.

We need accountability and asking the unaccountable state to regulate the unaccountable corporations when they are components of the same disease is folly.

So keep voting, you guarantee yourself nothing will ever resolve in the favour of the people unless it benefits the status quo first.

Zalm

I'll invoke Godwin's Law. Might as well call a spade a spade or eugenics....by another name. To me it sure sounded like a Nazi solution to a problem.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics

I'm in agreement with Zalm:

I'm in agreement with Zalm: cease limited liability, especially for corporations involved, first, in resource extraction, energy sector and all those others which could significantly impact on the environment.
I see insurance companies as subversive to democracy: the insurance companies are free to invest (your) money in what corporations do that you must then insure for.