❂ Mallory will offer his targets a lucrative business opportunity. There will be some show of early profits, and the promise of huge annual returns. If Alice invests, she will not see his money back. Pyramid schemes are a classic psychopath construction. If Alice challenges Mallory, he will insist on his innocence. He will then ask for more money to make things work again. Alice often falls for that. The psychology of sunk costs I explained in Attack and Capture is powerful.
❂ Mallory will use people as slave labor. He has no remorse doing this. He will justify it in creative ways. "I saved them from a worse fate," or "They are paying back their debt to me." In an organization, this means volunteers and interns, cheap foreign labor, and extreme overtime. In a family, you will see Mallory avoiding work and delegating to others. In cults and prisons, you get outright slave labor.
❂ Mallory will convert others' assets by claiming "yours is ours is mine". In marriage, Mallory insists on sharing all property and savings. This makes them easy to plunder. Yet he will keep his own assets hidden. In business, a startup may tell its new hires, "You are part of this!" and even give them a nominal shareholding. In return the employee must contribute all their time. If the firm ever makes profits, or sells for a large amount, the employee gets little back.
❂ Mallory will create debt and push that onto others. He uses the reverse "mine is ours is yours" principle. This is common in business deals and marriages with psychopaths. Mallory borrows money in the name of the joint venture, and hides or spends that money. He then defaults, leaving Alice to pay the bill.
❂ Mallory will encourage Alice to invest in new assets. This could be a new company, or property. Mallory always gets enough of a stake to be able to steal. He often insists he is the only trustworthy party. "You are too old and senile to recognize crooks!" he tells Alice, who must sign over full control of the new assets.
❂ Mallory will steal and defraud whenever he believes he can get away with it. This is consistent, whether the amounts are a few dollars or millions. The price to the victim is irrelevant. All that matters is the benefit/risk ratio for Mallory. Fraud works better when he knows and profiles his victims in advance. So for example, if Mallory shoplifts his groceries, he sticks to shops he knows. If he steals old people’s identities, he targets people he knows and can control.
If Mallory gets caught, he always denies the facts, and blames someone else. It may be the victim. It may be other bystanders. He denies responsibility even when confronted with material evidence. There will be no remorse, no attempts to make it right, no apologies.
The Ukrainian serial murderer Andrei Chikatilo said[47], about his 50-60 victims: "I did not need to look for them. Every step I took, they were there."
For every wallet and every heart, there is a story that will open it. Sometimes it’s being the tragic victim of a cruel world. Sometimes the wallet opens for false promises. "Let’s invest in tulip bulbs! I’ve a cousin who’s importing them." "We should build an extension to the house. My friend will come and help." Sometimes it is simple blackmail. Give me a new car, or I’m leaving. Sometimes objects of value disappear.
Wherever there are flows of money, Mallory tries to get control over them. In an organization he will try to be treasurer or get spending authority. In a family, he will "hold the purse." Mallory is as negligent in paying bills as he is quick to steal. This combination is a recipe for ruin.
Many business do go bankrupt like this. Yet many more do not. It is interesting to look at the design of a modern business. The concept of a limited-liability entity may seem sinister. How can a business be a "legal person?" How is it ethical to allow a business to take risks that do not carry onto their owners? Is this a conspiracy by capitalism to defraud the general public?
In fact a business entity is a one-way trapdoor. It stops debt moving back onto investors. Most often the investors are not the ones running the business. Without such a trapdoor, Mallory can borrow heavily, steal the cash, and run off.
Modern States demand annual accounts from businesses. They give owners the right to inspect these accounts. They let owners question their business managers to justify them. They often separate the roles of treasurer and chief executive. All this reduces the scope for fraud.
So the core of modern business law is an anti-psychopath defense.
The French proverb Les bons comptes font les bons amis applies here. Some misinterpret this as "debts must be repaid as fast as possible." It just means that any relationship must balance.
If you look at the accounting, an abusive relationship shows up right away. "We’re in an open relationship," Mallory says. He knows Alice will try harder and harder to get him to commit. Meanwhile he is "free" to sleep with other women.
We’ve evolved many defenses against predators looking to empty our real or social wallets. Another of those defenses is the ritual of gift giving. This is a fascinating part of human culture. We get so much pleasure from our rituals of exchanging gifts. And particularly when they are heavy with emotional value. We get such pleasure from making a successful gift. That shows how important the ritual is.
Gift giving can take different forms. I believe that it’s fine to work for free. It is also fine to charge a full price for your services. The first is a gift. The second is a transaction, not an investment. What I will not do is work at less than my worth, on the basis of future rewards. This is something I’ve learned to avoid, unless I’m working for myself.
You should be free to walk away from any relationship, at any time. This includes personal, business, and social relationships. It does not mean lack of commitment. It means clarity and freedom. When a relationship is healthy and makes you happy, you have no reason to end it. And when it is unhealthy and makes you unhappy, you should not have to continue it.
Techniques of Confusion
Mallory must keep Bob captive and docile while she feeds. She most often uses words rather than chains. She is a convincing speaker, quick to find the right thing to say. She is always confident and dominant. To hold Bob captive without chains, she keeps him in a state of confusion. There are many techniques, and I’ll try to cover the main ones.
It’s not Me, it’s You
There is a certain kind of lie that Mallory uses, called "gaslighting." He does this to confuse Alice, by messing with her memory and sense of reality. The term comes from a play and 1944 movie, "Gaslight." As Wikipedia notes[48], "Sociopaths frequently use gaslighting tactics. Sociopaths consistently transgress social mores, break laws, and exploit others, but typically, are also charming and convincing liars who consistently deny wrongdoing."
Some classic forms of gaslighting are:
❂ To lie about important past conversations. "You told me I could borrow the car! You even gave me your credit card so I could fill the gas tank!"
❂ To lie about past agreements. "We agreed you would invest in my firm if I tried to get you a meeting with the vice-president. Well I tried, and now you owe me that investment!"
❂ To lie about irrelevant details. "No, we didn’t have Italian yesterday, it was sushi. You had the maki, remember."