What happens when a selfish person acquires enough wealth to get public attention? What happens when a selfish person acquires enough power to get public attention? What happens when a selfish person acquires both? Take a minute to mentally scan your news and social media feeds for the people who come to mind as you re-read these questions.
What kind of dangers do those people pose to themselves? What kind of dangers do they pose to others, particularly you and me? You’d want to know, even just to protect yourself and your family, right?
This post is a frank discussion about the dangers they present. And this isn’t just a bitch session. It’s a solution session in that I’ll introduce one antidote that helps prevent selfishness and another that helps selfish people rehabilitate and repair the damage they’ve done.
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When Selfish People Acquire Wealth
A typical definition of selfish reads, “concerned chiefly or excessively with oneself, and having little regard for others” and “showing or arising from an excessive concern for oneself and a lack of concern for others.” We don’t deal here with how people become selfish. We’re just identifying and dealing with them as they are.
Wealth by itself isn’t the saving grace we imagine it will be when we buy our lottery tickets. Neither does it turn us into better people. Rather, wealth amplifies the traits we already have. When a selfish person acquires wealth, it typically magnifies their lack of empathy and connection with others, leaving them vulnerable to emotional, social and even physical risks. It also typically puts them in danger of harm to themselves by fostering isolation, mistrust, and destructive habits.
What the dangers of wealth look like for selfish people:
Social isolation - Selfish wealthy people typically alienate others through manipulative or exploitative behavior. This isolation can lead to their loneliness and mental health challenges. For example, every business owner who drives her employees to maximize profits, then hoards those profits for herself rather than using them to reward the employees who helped generate those profits, eventually faces low employee morale, quiet quitting/low engagement, high turnover, and will find herself unsupported by her employees during a crisis.
Mistrust and paranoia - Wealth invites attention from others, and selfish people could begin to find it hard to trust those around them, fearing ulterior motives. This mistrust and paranoia can result in heightened stress and strained relationships, and even the severing of healthy relationships. Selfish wealthy people have been known to sever ties with friends and family, believing they only seek financial gain, leaving that person without a genuine emotional support system. The stories of John D. Rockefeller quickly come to mind.
Risky behavior and health decline - Wealthy people have access to abundant resources and opportunities to acquire things and experiences. Selfishness typically manifests itself in indiscriminately pursuing those opportunities through indulgent or reckless spending, substance abuse, and other harmful behaviors. Legions of wealthy celebrities who have died relatively young, often from some form of substance abuse or self-inflicted injury and broke come to mind.
To learn more, check out Tim Kasser’s book, The High Price of Materialism, which explores how selfish values can negatively impact the psychological well-being of those individuals.
Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette; © sedmak from Getty Images via Canva.com
When Selfish People Acquire Power
Power, like wealth, amplifies the traits we already have. When a selfish person acquires power, it typically magnifies their lack of compassion, which leads to unchecked ambition, paranoia, and self-destructive decisions. It also typically puts them in danger of harm to themselves by fostering resentment, undermining support systems, and creating instability.
What the dangers of power look like for selfish leaders:
Resentment and rebellion - Selfish leaders typically prioritize personal gains over the wellbeing of their followers. This prioritization often leads to dissatisfaction, rebellion, or betrayal among followers which risks the physical safety of the leader and their family. History remembers the example of autocratic rulers like Louis XVI of France who, by ignoring the needs of the people, fueled the French Revolution and led to his personal demise. As I write this, Bashar al-Assad’s brutal rule of Syria has been toppled and, to save himself, he has fled to Russia.
Paranoia and isolation - Selfish individuals in power often mistrust others, fearing coups or sabotage. This can lead to over-controlling behavior and isolation, depriving them of critical advice and support. History also remembers Joseph Stalin who, despite his immense power, became paranoid about potential threats, leading to purges that decimated his own inner circle and heightened his insecurity. Again, al-Assad fits that profile.
Overreach and hubris - Selfish leaders typically overextend their power, making reckless decisions that harm their reputation and stability of the people they lead. Ripping one example from recent business news, Adam Neumann of WeWork appears to have made enough self-serving decisions to drive the company’s dramatic decline while damaging his credibility and financial standing.
For more examples, check out Jean Lipman-Blumen’s book, The Allure of Toxic Leaders, about how leaders with selfish, narcissistic, or toxic tendencies can undermine themselves and those they lead, ultimately leading to their own destruction.
When Selfish People Acquire Wealth and Power
When a selfish person acquires wealth and power, their tendency to prioritize personal gains at the expense of societal wellbeing is amplified. In their minds, this combination of wealth and power both fosters and justifies the exploitation of resources and manipulation of systems intended to benefit the common good. Their inherent lack of empathy coupled with a lack of accountability often leads to widespread pain and suffering among the rest of us.
What the dangers of selfish wealth and power look like for the rest of us:
Exploitation of resources and people - Selfish people too frequently use their wealth and power to exploit others by retaining benefits for themselves while externalizing costs onto society. A typical example is a corporation that disregards concern for the local environment and pollutes, causing ecological damage and health risks until they are required by law to stop.
Suppression and oppression - With power and wealth, a selfish person can leverage their position to suppress dissent, exploit workers, or marginalize vulnerable groups. The corporate practices of squelching unions, misclassifying employees as contractors, and creating gig workers rather than full time employees with benefits are current examples.
Corruption and inequality - Selfish leaders often perpetuate corruption, consolidating their power while increasing societal inequality. In corporate circles, corrupt leadership leads to failures like the 2008 financial crisis. In political circles, monies intended for public welfare are often diverted for personal luxury, leading to widespread poverty and weakening infrastructure. Whether corporate or political, the ensuing wealth disparity becomes palpable and fosters instability.
In his book, Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World, Anand Giridharadas illustrates how selfish people often perpetuate societal problems by prioritizing their interests while presenting themselves as benefactors. This is a good resource to learn more.
Turning to The Antidotes
We’ve spent enough time on the harms selfish people pose to themselves and us. Now we turn to the two most powerful antidotes to selfishness: empathy and compassion. Empathy helps prevent people from becoming selfish, while compassion helps selfish people recover and undo the damage they’ve created.
Empathy
Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings, thoughts, and experiences of another person. It involves recognizing emotions in others, putting oneself in their shoes, and responding in a way that acknowledges their perspective. Cognitive empathy is the intellectual ability to understand someone else's perspective or mental state, while emotional empathy is the ability to feel what another person is experiencing emotionally.
As a whole, empathy helps prevent people from becoming selfish in at least three ways. First, it strengthens relationships because it allows people to connect deeply, fostering trust and understanding in personal and professional interactions. Next, empathy enhances conflict resolution in that it helps understand other viewpoints, de-escalates tensions, and finds common ground. Third, it motivates people to act in ways that benefit others. For those interested in more, Simon Baron-Cohen's book, The Science of Evil, explores empathy, its role in human behavior, and the consequences when it’s absent.
The first antidote - empathy prevents selfishness
Empathy is a skill we can all develop. Particularly for the wealthy and powerful, empathy acts as a guardrail that helps them to not cause harm to others by fostering understanding, compassion, and a sense of responsibility toward those they impact. In other words, empathy can reduce or eliminate selfishness. When empathy influences decision-making, it encourages ethical behavior, fair treatment, and a focus on the collective good rather than personal gain.
Nelson Mandela; © RapidEye from Getty Images Signature via Canva.com
How empathy acts as an antidote:
Promotes Fairness and Justice - Empathetic individuals are more likely to consider the needs and rights of others, ensuring equitable treatment and reducing exploitation. For example, Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard has displayed empathy in leading his famous and profitable company, which has resulted in ensuring fair wages, installing environmentally sustainable operations, and donating company profits to social impact organizations.
Encourages Ethical Leadership - Empathy helps leaders recognize the potential consequences of their actions on others, promoting ethical governance and minimizing harm. Political leaders, such as Jacinda Ardern, former Prime Minister of New Zealand, demonstrated empathy during the COVID-19 pandemic by implementing policies that balanced public health with economic recovery.
Builds Trust and Social Harmony - Empathetic actions foster trust between leaders and those they influence, reducing the likelihood of rebellion or unrest. Leaders like Nelson Mandela, in his role as president, applied empathy to prioritize national healing, rebuilding, and reconciliation in post-apartheid South Africa rather than seek personal or political retribution.
Daniel Goleman’s work on emotional intelligence is well known and respected. His book, Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships, emphasizes the role of empathy in effective leadership and its ability to create healthier environments for the common good.
Compassion
Compassion is the deep awareness of the suffering of others, coupled with a heartfelt desire to alleviate it. Unlike empathy, which is more limited to understanding and sharing someone’s feelings, compassion motivates action to address the source of distress and provide support or relief to others. Think of this as a math equation: Empathy + Action = Compassion.
While compassion can also help prevent people from becoming selfish, its powerful role is in helping people pull back from their selfishness. Compassion acts in at least three related ways: it fosters awareness of others’ suffering that enables an emotional connection, which motivates taking tangible steps to help ease or eliminate that suffering. The tangible results of compassion include improved wellbeing, stronger communities, and ethical behaviors.
The second antidote - compassion rehabilitates and repairs
Compassion enables selfish people to undo the damage they caused by fostering within them a genuine desire to alleviate the suffering of others. Compassion moves beyond empathy by driving actionable steps to address injustices, restore balance, and repair damage. Compassion doesn’t require a person to surrender their wealth or power, just to use it in ways that benefit more than themselves and their narrow self-interests.
How compassion acts as an antidote:
Improves wellbeing - Compassion drives self-reflection and accountability. From that place of beginning, a person can admit their mistakes and harms–if only to themselves–and begin reconciliation where possible through caring acts that foster healing, reduce stress, and promote emotional and physical recovery.
Encourages ethical and restorative behavior - Compassionate people are more likely to make ethical decisions that are mutually beneficial or at least don’t harm others. From a restorative perspective, compassion helps a person use his or her resources to fund initiatives, reforms, or reparative programs that directly address damage he or she may have caused.
Fosters a commitment to justice - Compassion also leads to sustained efforts to practice justice and fairness, prevent future harm, and create systemic change in the name of fairness and the common good. Empowering those impacted by selfish damage allows them to rebuild their lives with a renewed dignity.
For further insights into the positive economic impact of compassion, check out the books, Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, by Nicholas Kristoff and Sheryl WuDunn, and Compassionomics: The Revolutionary Scientific Evidence That Caring Makes a Difference, by Stephen Trzeciak and Anthony Mazzarelli.
The Special Dangers of Selfish People Holding Elected Office
Selfish people, especially those with significant wealth and power, who are elected to public office pose a significant threat to the rest of us. No doubt this threat has been present since our prehistoric ancestors gathered to elect tribal leaders, but as human beings developed, they erected guardrails to limit if not contain the threat. Surprising in countries that call themselves democracies, such as my beloved United States of America, the guardrails are being dismantled, and the great threat posed by today’s brand of selfish politician is now clear and present.
The importance of empathy and compassion in politics
Collectively, we need to reject selfish people who we see want to simply increase their power by holding public office and their wealth by having access to the government budget, in favor of the Priest-Prophet-Politician. It may take time to find or develop Priest-Prophet-Politician candidates, but for the here and now and certainly for our own safety, we need better quality politicians. These leaders would clearly demonstrate that they possess empathy and can lead with compassion, because these qualities enable them to understand and address the needs of diverse populations, build trust, and create policies that generally promote fairness and wellbeing. Empathy helps elected leaders connect with people on a human level, while compassion motivates them to take meaningful actions to help improve the lives of those they represent.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt; © The Everett Collection via Canva.com
The advantage of being an empathic and compassion politician:
Understanding Constituents' Needs - Empathy allows politicians to grasp the challenges and aspirations of their constituents, ensuring that policies reflect the realities of people's lives. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal programs were shaped by his empathetic understanding of the struggles faced by Americans during the Great Depression, saving our nation by focusing on relief, recovery, and reform.
Fostering Unity and Trust - Compassionate leadership bridges divisions within a society by addressing grievances and building trust across ideological, cultural, or socioeconomic lines. Abraham Lincoln’s emphasis on “malice toward none” during the Reconstruction era demonstrated his compassionate approach to healing and rebuilding a fractured nation.
Promoting Ethical Decision-Making - Empathy and compassion guide politicians to prioritize the common good over personal or partisan interests, which fosters ethical governance that leads to tackling systemic injustices and investing in long-term solution that empower the weak and poor to lift themselves up. Nelson Mandela’s leadership in dismantling apartheid in South Africa was rooted in empathy for oppressed communities and a compassionate vision for reconciliation and equality.
Thanks for reading. You now know what empathy and compassion look like. You know what it looks like when they're missing in others, and that their absence is the primary reason why selfish people are selfish. You also know what they look like when they're present in others and that they're the primary reasons why our best leaders became our best leaders, and that empathy and compassion are qualities we need in our corporate and political leaders as part of the move to a better capitalism.
So, what’s yours to do? It's to demonstrate empathy and compassion in your Better Capitalism corner of the world and help others do the same. You can get started . . . now!
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