Snakes in Suits:

When Psychopaths Go to Work

Babiak & Hare

Psychopaths are ruthless, cunning, and conscienceless egotists. They will sell out their own mother in their quest for power. And yet they are loved and admired by many. How can we reconcile this contradiction?

Babiak and Hare demonstrate that psychopaths are masters of adopting a "mask of sanity" (a term coined by Hervey Cleckley in his masterpiece, "The Mask of Sanity"); that is they are extremely effective at impression management. They are con artists who can fool even the experts, donning whatever persona is needed to manipulate their victims.

If you can be of value to the social striving of a subclinical psychopath, you can bet that he will convince you of his good intentions, his honour, his kind nature, etc. But it is a lie. He is simply using you.

"Snakes in Suits" examines psychopaths in the corporate workplace: how to spot them and how to deal with them. But its lessons are applicable to a bigger picture. The moral relativism inherent in our Capitalist system is the perfect opening for opportunistic psychopaths to rise to the top.

And as the authors show, this can never be a good thing. Psychopaths are untalented narcissists who profit only on the work of others. And in a political environment, this can be disastrous. Witness, for example, the historical phenomena of Nazism and Stalinism, systems of government in which psychopaths occupied all positions of authority.