In this insightful piece, Michael Hudson addresses two critical ailments that are wreaking havoc on societies and challenging the current global order.
By Michael Hudson, a research professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, and a research associate at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College. His latest book is The Destiny of Civilization
The United States’ 2025 National Security Strategy emphasizes the need to dominate the global oil trade. To this end, Donald Trump’s Oil War seeks to undermine the sovereignty of countries like Iran, Iraq, and neighboring OPEC nations, a strategy that has also been applied to Venezuela. There is little concern regarding the collateral damage caused by these disruptions, which are driving many economies into depression.
This reckless behavior resembles the traits of a sociopath as defined by psychologists. According to the Mayo Clinic, a sociopath is defined as someone who “consistently shows no regard for right and wrong,” neglecting the rights and feelings of others. Those with antisocial personality disorder tend to provoke anger or emotional distress in others, treating them harshly or with indifference, often without remorse. Such a diagnosis can aptly describe any nation pursuing empire through conquest, but U.S. foreign policy has taken these tendencies to unprecedented levels.
Much like sociopaths resist moral constraints, U.S. diplomats have dismissed the United Nations Charter, which enshrines international laws of war prohibiting civilian attacks. American weaponry and missile technologies are facilitating acts of ethnic and religious genocide, ranging from Ukraine to the Middle East, where forces such as the Ukrainian military, Israeli forces, and various Wahhabi al-Qaeda affiliates serve as proxies for American interests.
Trump’s aggressive and impulsive rhetoric, accompanied by acts of belligerence, contradicts the fundamental principles of international conduct that once defined civilization. The U.N. Charter’s directive against interfering with the sovereignty of other nations stems from the Treaty of Westphalia, which concluded Europe’s Thirty Years’ War. Since then, the United States has toppled foreign governments, instigating regime changes from Russia to Iran through bombings that target civilians, including students and medical professionals, aiming to coerce populations into replacing their governments with U.S.-aligned oligarchies.
Furthermore, U.S. diplomacy consistently breaches international maritime laws. Attacks on fishing vessels from Venezuela to Colombia and in the Persian Gulf occur without warning or justification, showcasing American disregard for international legal standards and demonstrating the impotence of the United Nations and other international bodies to prevent maritime violence.
By imposing sanctions on isolated Russian oil production, the United States has wreaked havoc on Libya and seized Iraq’s oil revenue, ignoring demands from the Iraqi government for U.S. withdrawal. Similar tactics have been employed in Venezuela, where oil exports are funneled into U.S. accounts under direct control of the Trump Administration.
Trump’s conduct reflects a seamless transition from his history as a dishonest real estate mogul, characterized by deceit and contract breaches, to a political role where similar tactics are employed on a global scale. Both U.S. foreign policy and domestic politics seek to undermine the self-sufficiency of nations and individuals alike. Meanwhile, wealthy magnates and aspiring politicians further entrench a growing segment of the U.S. population in a cycle of debt dependency and financial insecurity.
U.S. strategists exhibit a fear typical of bullies: that foreign nations achieving independence from U.S. control over vital resources like oil and information technology might resist the demands of American imperialism. The creditor class, monopolists, and the elite One Percent share a similar anxiety about laws that could restrict their financial dominance and wealth accumulation at the expense of the increasingly indebted 99 Percent, who are trapped in a cycle of debt.
This relentless drive for power also manifests in corporate executives, gangsters, religious cult leaders, and various politicians pursuing their self-serving ambitions. Sociopathic behavior is often celebrated as a catalyst for progress, free from public accountability, enabling economic inequality and the sort of decadence that precipitated the fall of the Roman Empire.
A Vocabulary to Describe Today’s Global Fracture and Its Civilizational War
To effectively articulate these issues and the self-justifications offered by contemporary neoliberal ideology, we need a specialized vocabulary. Here are two proposed terms:
Geopathology: This term refers to the abusive conduct in international relations that exploits and victimizes other nations through a unilateral double standard. All forms of imperialism are characterized by such geopathological behavior.
Econopathology: This concept denotes the ideology that defends a lack of social empathy. At its core lies today’s libertarian mantra of “greed is good,” which prioritizes individual self-interest over governmental regulations meant to uphold social obligations of reciprocity and mutual assistance.
Civilization could not have advanced had figures like Margaret Thatcher, Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek, and Alan Greenspan promoted their doctrines to early societies, as these ideas would have led to economic polarization and oppressive oligarchies instead of protecting the rights and welfare of their citizenry. Only social reciprocity and mutual aid can ensure the longevity of civilization by preventing stark inequalities and safeguarding citizens’ rights.
Historical Greek philosophy recognized the need for protection against the pathological behaviors often driven by greed. Wealth, particularly in its monetary forms, was perceived as inherently addictive, leading to actions detrimental to others. This understanding led to societal rules that enforced reciprocity and respect for human rights—values that have greatly diminished in today’s financialized and neoliberal societies. Presently, corporate managers are trained to focus solely on maximizing shareholder profits, often disregarding the social and environmental costs that accompany such exploitation.
The underlying theme connecting geopathology and econopathology is their shared denial of freedom and autonomy for other nations and peoples. U.S. diplomacy perceives foreign sovereignty as a threat to its imperial objectives, while both pathologies aim to reduce individuals to dependent statuses—debtors or serfs.
Historically, societies have endeavored to socialize the inherent human drives for wealth and power. Socrates championed the idea of a wise central authority tasked with regulating these drives to protect against oligarchies. However, Aristotle noted the tendency of democracies to devolve into oligarchies, which then seek to perpetuate their power free from public regulations—both domestically and internationally.
How can today’s economies cope with geopathology and its econopathological underpinnings?
Sociopathology, like econopathology and geopathology, does not resolve itself. Ancient societies often utilized cities of refuge, allowing those exhibiting sociopathic behaviors to temporarily reside away from society until they could be reintegrated.
In recent decades, U.S. foreign policy has institutionalized a neoliberal doctrine that rejects any notion of reform—both diplomatically and economically. The challenge for today’s Global Majority is to establish an alternative multipolar framework that promotes mutual aid and respects the autonomy of diverse nations—a commitment that has always been an ideal but remains unfulfilled.
Creating this alternative vision necessitates a new doctrine distinct from neoliberalism, alongside the establishment of laws that govern international relations equitably. Today, for the first time since 1945, a critical mass of nations exists, presenting a unique opportunity to form new institutions dedicated to protecting their sovereignty and independence.
