Are Corporations Psychopaths?!

So after listening to a This American Life radio program on psychopaths, I decided to look up the test that is used to determine if criminals should be labeled psychopaths (such a label can keep a prisoner in prison for longer than his original sentence and the test in controversial). I found this checklist online and thought, hmm, many corporations (think pharmaceutical companies for these answers) could easily be labeled psychopaths....

Hare Psychopathy Checklist

Factor 1: Personality "Aggressive narcissism"

• Glibness/superficial charm Yes!
  
• Grandiose sense of self-worth Yes
  
• Pathological lying About risks associated with drugs? Yes!
  
• Cunning/manipulative (see above) Yes
  
• Lack of remorse or guilt Totally
  
• Shallow affect (genuine emotion is short-lived and egocentric) Yes
  
• Callousness; lack of empathy Yes - although they seem to feign empathy and pretend things are about "saving lives," not money.
  
• Failure to accept responsibility for own actions I don't hear of many corporations pleading guilty...
  

Factor 2: Case history "Socially deviant lifestyle".

• Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom Definitely - there are constantly new drugs popping up
  
• Parasitic lifestyle Mmm... I think this applies to corporations everywhere, as they depend on workers to carry the real weight.
  
• Poor behavioral control No - but they would if they weren't so concerned with their public image
  
• Lack of realistic long-term goals Well, when they have studies that show that a drug can hurt people and they still sell it any way, I'd say that's unrealistic
  
• Impulsivity If money is involved... oui oui
  
• Irresponsibility Easiest one to answer: YES!
  
• Juvenile delinquency (ok this is where we all really have to admit that corporations are not individuals!)
  
• Early behavior problems (ditto, see above)
  
• Revocation of conditional release generally pharmaceutical companies don't do conditions - they just pay more money
  

Traits not correlated with either factor

• Promiscuous sexual behavior (there seems to be a lot of focus on sexuality and drugs lately... not to mention all the sex scandals and harassment that happens....)
  
• Many short-term marital relationships (within the management this is likely)
  
• Criminal versatility Yes!
  
• Acquired behavioural sociopathy/sociological conditioning (Item 21: a newly identified trait i.e. a person relying on sociological strategies and tricks to deceive) Oh my YES

Very very interesting, I must say.