This gives us a classic hunting pattern for Mallory. First, he conquers Bob and some other men with a smile and utter confidence. He implies some promises of future benefit. This can take only a few minutes. Then he presents this temporary ersatz structure to Alice as she passes. He shows dominance over the assembled men. Alice finds this charming man desirable. She begins to respond to him. When he suggests they take their discussion somewhere private, she agrees. It is just how the men would respond to inflated bosoms and welcoming smiles.
Power Pyramids vs. Living Systems
Male psychopaths can and do work at the personal level. Yet it is dust compared to the industrial-scale male psychopathy of many organizations. Before we look at how Mallory hunts Bob, we must take a small detour. I will explore how humans organize at scale.
Humans seem to organize in two specific, and contrasting ways. These are the "living system" and the "power pyramid."
A living system is a loose economic network of inter-independent actors or pieces. These pieces trade resources such as knowledge, work, or money. These resources flow through the system in different directions and at their own rhythm. Living systems have no obvious power structure. They have no identifiable owners and no central authority. They have no central decision making or planning.
A power pyramid is an explicit structure, with a name, purpose, and leadership hierarchy. Decisions and planning move down, and profits move up. The entire pyramid is the property of those at the top. It is a clear hierarchy where position defines status, and status defines position.
Living systems are unobtrusive, almost invisible. They have no marketing departments, no boards, no CEOs. They consist of thousands, even millions, of independent actors. These actors self-organize around the most interesting areas. Living systems are far more profitable than power pyramids. Yet those profits spread wide, and are hard to measure.
Living systems are powerful and core to our way of life. They feed our cities and keep our shops filled with goods. They supply us with clothes, information, Internet. Every city is a living system, or it is a prison. Every economy is a living system, or it is a planned failure.
The exchanges in a living system depend on contracts agreed upfront. Living systems detect and punish cheats, using the simple mechanism of free choice. They need some form of regulator. That is, laws and enforcement. Natural living systems use the laws of physics, chemistry, and biology. Artificial living systems produce their own authorities, usually by evolution and competition.
Successful living systems are fair to all participants (that is, ethical) by virtue of the need to be efficient. They tend to treat discrimination and cheating as inefficiencies, problems to solve. Living systems experiment all the time with small answers to new problems. They bury the failures and promote the successes. This makes them good at adapting to change. They are resilient and survive until broken by a catastrophic external event. Cities survive empires, unless razed to the ground.
Power pyramids specialize in getting clients, suppliers, and workers to give more for less. They act like parasites. If you turn a power pyramid upside down, it looks like a feeding funnel. An extreme example are the large surface retailers who pay their suppliers and staff the minimum, while generating billions in profits.
It takes some effort to keep masses of people sitting still while you feed off them. Power pyramids do this using a mix of force, bribes, and threats. They demand physical presence. They promise monthly salaries and bonuses. Failure to conform means dismissal. This is a form of constant, low-level internal violence. Power pyramids also project violence against external threats. They use force to remove competitors and achieve their goals. They are pragmatic, and remorseless.
Not all large businesses are pure power pyramids, and indeed most are a mix, with some aspects of living systems. Yet I’ve never seen a business apologize for beating a competitor. Nor have I ever heard of a country apologize for winning a war. Survival defines morality, in the short term. In the long term, morality defines survival. That is, living systems tend to beat power pyramids.
We see power pyramids most often in business, in government, and in organized religion. When the three mix together we get fascism and genocides. This happens when society is too fragmented and weak to resist. More often power pyramids are negligent, rather than outright destructive.
When power pyramids produce goods, they aim for lowest viable quality and highest price. In some cases they will poison and addict their customers, for profit. An example would be the food and drinks industry, with its emphasis on sugar. Power pyramids do not listen to the market. Instead they try to force people to accept their goods, with heavy advertising. You could say power pyramids lack the capacity for empathy.
Power pyramids are masters of deceit and hide their true nature. They market themselves, as "ethical," "positive," "good," and "fun." They spend billions on branding and image, developing narratives to sell their products. People believe these narratives and invest heavily in them.
The worse the product, the heavier the marketing. Coke. Microsoft. Kraft. Heinz, USA! Power pyramids communicate in lies wrapped around elements of truth. Their core values are profits and survival, no more or less.
Despite their focus on survival, power pyramids are bad at adapting to change. Over time they depend more and more on lies and force, as the world changes around them. They become fragile, and prone to rapid, catastrophic collapse. Nokia, Blackberry, the USSR.
Lacking empathy, callous and predatory, abusive… Many large businesses, religions, and certain flavors of government are psychopathic power pyramids.
A friend with good work experience interviewed with a large technology firm. The process left her feeling puzzled and humiliated. "Why do I have to prove myself to a young interviewer?" she asked me. "Can’t they just look at my work. It is all on-line." We thought about it. I said, maybe humiliation is a goal of such interviews. If you accept that, you’ll accept much worse, in return for that juicy pay check. Conformity is a test.
Do these two models represent the male vs. female ways of working? It is a tempting notion. The male protocol deals with male power, the female protocol with social knowledge. Yet it would be foolish to caricature "maleness" as evil. Our species did not evolve gender specialization to divide us. It did so to let us work better together. Both men and women are happier and more effective in living systems. And power pyramids exploit both men and women.
The truth is more subtle, I think. Living systems need flows of both knowledge and action. The male and female protocols work together, solving different parts of a larger puzzle. Power pyramids are a distortion, constructed by the psychopathic ego. They are a temporary fruit of mass industrialization and urbanization. They are so dominant we take them for granted. Yet they are I believe malignant and anti-social, and destined to slowly fade away.
What male psychopaths want above all is power over others. It is rarely about money. As Frank Underwood says in the Netflix series "House of Cards,"
Such a waste of time, he chose money over power. In this town, a mistake nearly everyone makes. Money is the McMansion in Sarasota that starts falling apart after ten years. Power is the old stone building that stands for centuries. I cannot respect someone that doesn’t see the difference.