The gaggle of economic sociopaths

By Neal Gabler | October 31, 2009

YOU MAY be wondering how it is that this week the financial industry, which was on taxpayer life support, announced it would be doling out more than $140 billion in bonuses to the very executives who created the mess in the first place. Or how it is that some of these same institutions recently began raising the interest rates on your credit cards to unprecedented levels. Or how it is that there are now reports of new and risky financial skulduggery afoot.

To answer these questions, it may help to consult the “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders,’’ the handbook for psychologists. The manual describes a broad category called “antisocial personality disorder,’’ which includes those whom we commonly describe as sociopaths. According to the manual, this disorder manifests itself, among other ways, in “deceitfulness’’ as indicated by “conning others for personal profit or pleasure’’; “irresponsibility’’; and “lack of remorse as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another.’’