Beyond my scope, but I've been told by people in the field that "Sociopath" is no longer accepted as a technical term.
On Sat, Apr 19, 2014 at 7:37 PM, Carrol Cox <[email protected]> wrote: > One problem here is that the word "sociopath" is a useless term except > (perhaps) when used as a technical term in neuroscience. As a political > term, it's garbage. > > Carrol > > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] [mailto: > [email protected]] On Behalf Of raghu > Sent: Saturday, April 19, 2014 3:46 PM > To: Progressive Economics > Subject: Re: [Pen-l] Ants at the Piketty Picnic: What's Wrong with > "Inequality"? > > On Fri, Apr 18, 2014 at 6:23 PM, Eubulides <[email protected]> wrote: > > > What do you think the Kochs and Waltons of the world are? > > > If you are a billionaire, you are, by definition, a > sociopath. > > > ============ > > I’d really like to see some *evidence* for this claim. Not just a > bunch of strung together Ipse Dixit quotes by people who all simply declare > that rich people are sociopaths, creating a surrealistic circuit of > self-serving confirmation bias. > > > > > My main assertion here is that wealth (beyond a relatively modest > threshold) is a purely positional good. If you accept that, it follows, > pretty much by definition, that accumulation of wealth is a negative-sum > game. > > It is an ontological rather than an empirical assertion, and as such, I am > not sure what kind of evidence it is possible to provide for it. To put it > slightly differently, wealth is a claim on some scarce resource, which by > definition excludes others from using that resource. > > When you are very wealthy, you are making claims on resources that you > cannot possibly use yourself, which means you are making claims for the > sole purpose of denying other people the use of valuable resources. That > seems to me the very essence of sociopathy. > > That being said, there is some evidence that anti-social behavior is > strongly correlated with affluence: > http://nymag.com/news/features/money-brain-2012-7/index4.html > > > -raghu. > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > -- Facebook: Gar Lipow Twitter: GarLipow Solving the Climate Crisis web page: SolvingTheClimateCrisis.com Grist Blog: http://grist.org/author/gar-lipow/ Online technical reference: http://www.nohairshirts.com
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