This is me reading the introduction chapter to my new book written with my friend Tony

Kynaston, The Psychopath Economy. I don't know if you've noticed, but the world's in a bit

of a fucking mess right now. Our political class has failed us. Our business leadership has failed us.

So is the leadership of our religions, our media, our education system. It's pretty hard sometimes

not to just give up, tune out, smoke some weed, eat a shit ton of easy carbs and binge Netflix, which is perhaps precisely

what our leaders want us to do. Give up. Stop paying attention. Accept our impotence.

Let them get on with fucking things up. Have you ever wondered how things got this bad and what, if

anything, you can do about it? Well, if you have, then this book is for you. The main

premise of this book is simple. The world is in a fucking mess because we put psychopaths in charge.

We will argue that a relatively small group of psychopaths usually end up

running things. Not always, not in every situation, but enough of the time for it to be damaging.

Depressing? Yes. Is it always a bad thing? Not always, but usually, yes, it is a bad thing.

Now, before you get too depressed, we close the book by suggesting a range of things we can do about it.

But don't skip to the last chapter now. Be patient. We'll get there.

Now, even though this might be the way things have always been, a small group of psychopaths

running the world, the concept of psychopaths is actually relatively new.

It was first developed in 1941 by American psychiatrist Hervey M. Cleckley.

Before then, most people just thought the ones who were screwing up the world

were evil or possessed by demons or some other quaint, antiquated idea of human motivation.

Today, however, thanks to modern science, we're all somewhat familiar with the concept of psychopaths.

Unfortunately, many people assume psychopaths only form the ranks of serial killers and ranting dictators.

You're Ted Bundy, you're Joseph Stalin, Donald Trump, etc.

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