The Corporation: a psychopathic entity, with psychopaths for CEOs

In 2003, a Canadian 3-hour documentary titled The Corporation was released.

Documentary: The Corporation

The documentary is critical of the modern-day corporation, exposing it as "a person" from the legal point of view, and evaluating its attitude towards society and the world at large from the eyes of a psychologist.

One of the conclusions is that a corporation is a psychopath.

Robert Hare: criminal psychologist

This conclusion is grounded in the work of 71 year old Robert Hare, professor emeritus from the University of British Columbia in criminal psychology. He is known for having developed the Psychopathy Checklist, used by police around the world, as well as other occupations such as firefighters, teachers, nuclear plant workers, and more.

Hare also co-authored Snakes in Suits: When the psychopaths go to work in 2006 with Paul Babiak, a New York industrial psychologist.

On to psychoanalysing CEOs

In a July 2005 article on Fast Company titled Is your Boss a Psychopath? Hare's checklist is used to evaluate several high profile CEOs, and Fast Company found that many of them scored as "moderately psychopathic". The article is full of descriptions of corporate psychopaths, such as:

glibness and superficial charm; grandiose sense of self-worth;
pathological lying; conning and manipulativeness; lack of remorse
or guilt; shallow affect (i.e., a coldness covered up by dramatic
emotional displays that are actually playacting); callousness and
lack of empathy; and the failure to accept responsibility for one's
own actions.

A British study concludes that they are:

superficially charming, egocentric, insincere, and manipulative, and just as likely to be grandiose, exploitative, and lacking in empathy

CEOs are the perfect example of non-violent psychopaths. The only difference between the successful psychopaths (CEOs) and the non-successful ones (regular criminals) is that the latter are more impulsive and physically aggressive!).

The article goes on to distinguish between the destructive, transient, in-it-solely-for-self-gain psychopath and the productive narcissist, who shares some traits (e.g. disregard for others, self centered), but is out to change the world and is loyal to the corporation and shareholders.

The Corporation: Watch the video online

Finally, you can watch the The Corporation documentary by clicking on the image below.l