1st Edition

Sociopathic Society A People's Sociology of the United States

By Charles Derber Copyright 2013
    320 Pages
    by Routledge

    307 Pages
    by Routledge

    Charles Derber introduces and vividly explains the idea of a sociopathic society and why the idea has become necessary to understand today s world.Sociopathic society is rooted in governments and economies, not psychiatry. The book offers a new sociology of societies organized around antisocial values, which ultimately lead to societal and planetary self-destruction. Most of the sociopathic behaviors are perfectly legal and are perpetrated by governments, financial institutions, and corporate capitalism.Focusing on the United States, Derber connects the dots of Wall Street meltdown, guns and murder, uninhibited greed, the 1% and the 99%, a new crisis of unemployable surplus people, Hurricane Sandy and global warming, cheating scandals, and more including the war on democracy itself.Although the book brings together a breathtaking set of stories of a system run wild, it also offers hope, showing pathways for confronting and avoiding the many ways a society can commit sociocide. FEATURES OF THE BOOK"

    Part I Sociopathic Society; Chapter 1 An Anatomy of Sociopathic Society; Part II Sociopathy and the New American Dream; Chapter 2 The Good Man Fills his Own Stomach; Chapter 3 Conversational Narcissism and Sociopathic Talk; Chapter 4 Newtown Is Just the Tip of the Iceberg; Part III Sociopathic Capitalism; Chapter 5 Capitalist Crises and Capitalism against Society; Chapter 6 Manufacturing Surplus People; Chapter 7 The New Robber Barons; Chapter 8 Sins of the Corporate Regime; Chapter 9 Romney’s “47 Percent” Blunder Reveals the Hidden Heart of His Agenda, Charles Derber, Yale Magrass; Chapter 10 Sociopathic Globalization; Chapter 11 Kochamamie Democracy; Part IV War and Sociopathic Foreign Policy; Chapter 12 American Empire and Its Moral Big Stick, Charles Derber, Yale Magrass; Chapter 13 The “Wright Problem”, Charles Derber, Yale Magrass; Chapter 14 What Does It Mean to Call McCain a “War Hero” Candidate?, Charles Derber, Yale Magrass; Chapter 15 When Wars Come Home, Charles Derber, Yale Magrass; Part V Climate Change as Sociopathy; Chapter 16 How Capitalism Causes Climate Change; Chapter 17 Hurricane Sandy, Climate Sociopathy, and the Infrastructure Crisis; Chapter 18 Consumerism as Sociopathy; Part VI Fascism: The Ultimate Sociopathic Society?; Chapter 19 Fascism Lite; Chapter 20 History’s Magic Mirror, Charles Derber, Yale Magrass; Part VII Alternatives and Activism; New American Values and the New America; Chapter 21 Women’s Values and a New America; Chapter 22 Capitalism; Chapter 23 The New America Is Not about Identity Politics; Chapter 24 The Democracy Deficit Is the Real Deficit, Charles Derber, Paul Shannon; Alternative Systems; Chapter 25 The UN, the Barbershop, and Global Democracy; Chapter 26 Alternatives to Sociopathic Capitalism; Chapter 27 Will the World Be Ruled by Money or Human Rights?; Activism and What You Can Do; Chapter 28 What You Can Do Now; Chapter 29 From Bowling Alone to Bowling Green;

    Biography

    Charles Derber

    "Highly recommended. All levels/libraries."
    —CHOICE

    “Charles Derber is one of our most astute and eloquent social critics. His political analysis is persuasive and is enlivened by graceful prose.”
    —Howard Zinn

    "In this lucid and informed study, Charles Derber breaks through the necessary illusions and shows how the United States is being turned into a "sociopathic society," with control concentrated among intertwined economic, political, and military elites and reflections of its sociopathy rippling through every social stratum. But he also shows that there remains real hope that mass mobilization by currently fragmented social movements can reverse the sociopathic impetus.
    —from the Foreword by Noam Chomsky