Do politicians have psychopathic tendencies?

I ask because there's for years been talk of how companies select for psychopaths. One study by Paul Babiak and colleagues found that psychopathic traits are around five times more prevalent among senior executives than they are among the general population, and some notorious bosses have had nicknames indistinguishable from those of killers, such as "Fred the shred" and "Chainsaw Al" Dunlop. As Manfred Kets de Vries says:

Not all psychopaths are destined for prison; some may even be in top executive positions. Wherever power, status, or money is at stake, such individuals will be around.

But of course, there's power and status in politics too, so shouldn't we expect psychopaths to be around there too?

One reason to think so is that, as de Vries says, "the power games that typify organizational life come naturally to them." The psychopath's attributes, he says, are needed in decision-takers:

Many of the qualities that indicate mental problems in other contexts may appear appropriate in senior executive positions, particularly in organizations that appreciate impression management, corporate gamesmanship, risk taking, coolness under pressure, domination, competitiveness, and assertiveness. Even those traits that reflect a severe lack of human feeling or emotional poverty (lack of remorse, guilt, and empathy) can be put into service by SOBs in situations where being ''tough'' or ''strong'' (making hard, unpopular decisions) and emotional slickness work in their favor.

Babiak and colleagues add that "some psychopathic features (e.g., callousness, grandiosity, manipulativeness) may relate to the ability to make persuasive arguments and ruthless decisions."

There's more. Psychopaths, says Babiak, have a "grandiose sense of self-worth". This too helps one succeed, simply because hirers - and we might add voters - often mistake overconfidence for actual ability. The superficial charm and glibness of the psychopath also helps in politics: people want to know that their politicians have the answers, not that the world is a complex, unmanageable place with nasty trade-offs.

What's true in corporate life, then, might also be true in politics - that psychopathic traits (or "psychopath-lite" in de Vries' words) facilitate success. As Brian Klaas has written:

Psychologists refer to a particularly toxic set of personality traits as "The Dark Triad," and as the name suggests, it has three components: Machiavellianism; Narcissism; and Psychopathy (being a psychopath). When you pause and consider it, it seems particularly obvious that people with these traits would excel as politicians...you're more likely to encounter a psychopath in the halls of Congress or in Parliament than you are in your local supermarket.

In fact, there's one thing that helps psychopaths more in politics than in the corporate world - the media's valuing of "strong leaders." Starmer's ruthlessness, for example, is reported as being a matter of congratulation rather than as a possible symptom of a disorder albeit, perhaps, because it is directed towards the enemy.

We've reason to suspect, therefore, that politics, like business, can select for psychopathic traits. A lot of political behaviour becomes more comprehensible once we realize this.

For one thing, there's the persistent pattern of coercive control, in the urge to restrict freedom - be it wanting to ban under-16s from social media, banning disposable vapes, restricting the right to protest, and limiting our freedom to live and work in the EU. The kneejerk attitude of our ruling class - both main parties and the media - is to say no.

Closely related is the desire to preserve status inequalities. Opposition to devolution, to worker democracy and to well-functioning markets are usually seen as three different things. But they have a connection. All three help to preserve existing inequalities of power. That betokens the psychopath's concern with status hierarchies.

Another feature of psychopaths is their dishonesty and manipulativeness and ability to form and dissolve alliances as their interests require. As de Vries puts it, for the psychopath "after people serve their purposes, they are quickly cast aside." This is consistent not only with Starmer's treatment of Corbyn, being both an ally and opponent as his career required, but also with those Tories who claimed to be Thatcherite only to pursue violently anti-Thatcherite policies such as erecting trade barriers, restricting home ownership, increasing business uncertainty, complicating the tax system and generally fucking business.

And then of course there's the lack of empathy. George Osborne liked to speak about "tough choices" (which were of course always tough on the poor rather than rich), without caring about the deaths caused by austerity and benefit sanctions. Such callousness is another hallmark of the psychopath.

We can see the obsession with bombing countries in this context: Yemen, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria. Given the lack of efficacy of so many of these ventures, one might wonder whether "collateral damage" is a feature rather than a bug.

You might object there that there's another symptom of psychopathy which should disqualify people from positions of responsibility: a lack of impulse control and inability to make good long-term plans. "Should", however, does not mean "does", as the fact of Boris Johnson becoming Prime Minister demonstrated.

His elevation was not, however, an isolated example. Wanting to leave the EU without a plan on how to do so was a classic example of such impulsivity and a lack of planning, as were the on-off decisions about HS2. Both of which are part of a pattern noted by Sam Freedman:

[An] incredibly short-termist approach to public spending infects every area of policy-making. From endless expensive delays in defence procurement, to the refusal to invest in preventative programmes across education, health and crime that could ensure better outcomes and future savings across the public sector. The phenomenon is known across Whitehall as 'Treasury Brain'.

Now, I know that psychiatric diagnosis at a distance is bad practice. But I'm not trying to diagnose individuals, because my point isn't about them. It's about the system, the structure. Its functioning is consistent with politicians being selected for psychopathic traits. This isn't to say that all politicians are psychopaths, any more than the claim that the police are institutionally racist means that all policemen are racist. It's merely that there are systemic forces facilitating a tendency.

It's easy to get angry at politicians' dishonesty and callousness. When you get to my age, however, you need to reduce your blood pressure. One way to do so is to recognize that such characteristics are not so much isolated individual failings as the nature of the system.

And this is not always a bad thing. Sometimes, we really do need someone to take tough decisions, to choose whom to throw under the bus. When Starmer says "sometimes you have to be ruthless to be a good leader" he is echoing a better man, the
great Alan Sparhawk: "You may need a murderer, someone to do your dirty work." It's true. But like many great truths, only a partial one. The question is: do we need psychopaths here, and now? And do we want the choices that they make?