Does Money Make You an Ignorant Douche?
By: Alpha'S Path
Tags: Banking, Wall Street, Money Mindset, Finance, Money

Exploring the psychology behind why the super rich sometimes act like they have been compensated very less mentally.

Does Money Make You an Ignorant Douche? (Thumbnail)

Although the central theme of this article is a global event which is now a decade old I am certain that this brief discourse will add a new perspective to the discussion around it- one that I did not seem to find elsewhere.

About a week ago, I read the book, “Predator Nation: Corporate Criminals, Political Corruption, and the Hijacking of America,” by economist Charles H. Ferguson. Those of you that have watched the award-winning documentary, The Inside Job, might find his name familiar. Yes, it was he who had directed the documentary. And yes, the book- akin to its audio visual counterpart- also presents a critical analysis and probe on the 2008 global financial recession, its causes and the men responsible for it.

The book’s bright red cover page with a rather bold symbolism (see image below) led to my intrigue in giving it a read. The book was most definitely worthwhile a read and impeccable in its detail.

Predator Nation Book Cover

In summary, the book provides a detailed discourse on the causes behind the global recession- especially the people running the financial system at that point in time. It names and points out several individuals- bankers, regulators, lobbyists, financial analysts, and others involved in the banking industry who- the author suggests- were in the wrong.

For those reading this that might be unaware, the alleged misdoings of these individuals range from false financial reporting, and selling deceptive financial products, to facilitating money laundering, among numerous other breeches of the many laws that a business must abide by. For more context on the discussion in this video, I’d recommend you either give the book a read, or watch the documentary.

The author characterizes the banking industry’s decision makers as money-hungry and deceptive thugs, willing to stake every ounce of their integrity to defraud their clients in every way possible. He describes CEO personalities that raked in nine figure incomes, owned multiple properties and luxury ‘toys’, while indulging in personal misdoings such as drug use, prostitution and the like- essentially unethical people who couldn’t care less about their employees, company, or clients from within the self-indulgent bubble that they lived in. He described banking executives who were so distanced from reality that they traveled to and from work in private helicopters, private luxury vehicles and even private elevators within their own office buildings, in an attempt to cushion themselves form the outside world as much as possible- visualize the typical rich gangster that you see in movies, and quadruple the character’s ego.

The question that I want to put forth is the following; were these men inherently insensitive, deceitful and selfish or was it their unfathomably large sums of money and influence that had blinded their vision of reality? This is what came to my mind as I read more and more of the cases in the book. As someone who is passionate about behavioral psychology, I almost always tend to peer into other people’s psyche and try and understand the reason for their actions.

In my opinion, I think it was the latter. Not every single one of these men were devilish or unethical by nature, but rather it certainly must have been the lust for material wealth and pleasures that took over their sense of rationality.

You see, there is this primal instinct in most of us that prevents us from handling unfathomable amounts of power in a righteous manner. Here’s what I mean. If we look at most animals in the wild, the primary form of power that they tend to exhibit is physical power. Physical power limits you to exerting only as much power as you are capable of by yourself in the present moment. Or in other words there are seeming limitations to how much of it you can exert. We humans, obviously, don’t live in the time of brawn anymore, but rather our brawniness has taken on another form- currency. For most people however, they have very tangible limits to how much power their money allows them to exert. But for those at the very top of the social hierarchy, who have more money than they know possible ways of spending; they face a whole another challenge. At that point, you have access to more power than your mind is capable of contemplating. Being rational in such a state is not just improbable, but some might argue- biologically impossible.

There have been studies that have validated how earning money stimulates the same areas of the brain that consumption of psychoactive drugs, and indulgence in sexual pleasure stimulates. It is the type of mental stimulation that typically over-rides one’s rationality. (Money.Com- What Money and Cocaine Have in Common in Your Brain)

Think back to the very first paycheck you ever brought home. I’d be willing to bet, eight cases out of ten, you did not spend it wisely. Well, there’s obviously the naivety of a young mind, but the fact that money can override your sense of rationality cannot be ignored.

So the moral of this little discourse of mine, is that we must come to terms with the fact that money- and the resulting pleasures and power that it can buy- can most definitely shake one’s rationality. More so when one starts to pull in sums larger than they know what to do with.

So, how can we deal with this as a society? Just to be clear, I do not think settling for less is the right way to go. Money predicates your status in society’s dominance hierarchy and there is a great sense of achievement that one can experience as they scale up this hierarchy. However, becoming a public spectacle because of your foolish behavior driven by the lust for money, is not nearly as gratifying in the long run.

The best solution to such a problem, I think, is to educate young men about the fact that money can, and will, most likely override their sense of rationality and one must be cautious of this to avoid being carried away.

The last point that I want to touch upon is the Fundamental Attribution Error that most of make when judging other people’s behavior. More often than not we assume that people who do things that which may be subjectively bad, are terrible people inside, without taking into account the impact of their situational influences. I wrote an entire article about this topic which you can find here. This often makes for a very toxic framing of individuals that get caught doing the wrong thing, which subsequently results in them wanting to distance themselves from others and reality even more.

Until next time.

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