Treating Extreme Wealth As a Disease

[unhappycamper]

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Treating-Extreme-Wealth-As-by-Rob-Kall-Wealth_Wealth-Wealthy-140123-724.html



David Koch & Charles Koch

Treating Extreme Wealth As a Disease
OpEdNews Op Eds 1/23/2014 at 09:23:54
By Rob Kall

Psychiatry has been shifting to a model that is designed to identify psychiatric pathologies in most of the population. If there are no biological markers or indicators then the psychiatric diagnostic manual puts together patterns of behavior. Once it's characterized" there's, very conveniently, a drug for that.

Using this Big-Pharma driven model of diagnosis creation, I'm partially playfully and partially seriously offering some potential diagnostic categories for the very wealthy. Remember, this is half satire, I am not a mental health expert and I'm not doing serious references to support this exercise. Also, there are absolutely wealthy people who are decent people. The problem is, as Lord Acton observed, "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely." I would argue that there are so many risks and dangers in giving people the ability to accumulate huge amounts of money and the power that comes with it, that we should put limits on wealth and even tighter limits on inheritance of wealth.

The article wraps up by discussing the enablers of these "mental illnesses-- call them co-dependents? I've offered another diagnosis as well.

Hoarding-- In a conversation with Thom Hartmann last sumer, he suggested the idea that billionaires might be hoarders. People with hundreds of millions or billions of dollars are, in some ways like the people we see on the hoarder reality TV shows, with houses so packed with crap that they have to walk sideways or climb over piles. Hoarders can't let go of or throw away anything they've touched or that has their name on it. The other day, a local hoarder died in a house fire because he could not escape through the piles in his house. These people are often stuck in their homes and lose connection with other people. Hoarding is one pathological way to control their lives. Hoarding might be considered a variant of obsessive compulsive disorder.

[Philly Cowboy]

1. A Disease now confirmed by the judicial system.

Gee, I'm sorry. I'm rich and didn't know any better.