Why the principal question we ask about Bernie Madoff is wrong.
In light of Bernie Madoff's recent request for compassionate release we are republishing this entry from 2017.
In May, HBO’s The Wizard of Lies brought in the largest premiere audience that the network has seen in four years. The film, an adaptation of Diana Henriques’ journalistic account of Bernie Madoff’s multi-billion-dollar Ponzi scheme, saw, 2.4 million viewers, the weekend of its release—a sizable audience, especially considering that actors Richard Dreyfuss and Blythe Danner headlined Madoff, a four-hour ABC miniseries on the same subject, only a year prior. Perhaps as a way to seize upon the renewed interest generated by the film, which cast Robert De Niro in the lead role as Bernie and Michelle Pfeiffer as Ruth Madoff, the New York Post ran a lengthy article, “The sad new life of exiled Ruth Madoff,” with paparazzi-style photos of Ruth, her preferred bagel shop, dry cleaners, local clothing shop, and other quotidian details about a no-longer-privileged existence. The UK’s Daily Mail published a similar story with photos of the “recluse” Ruth emerging from a local CVS. With a distinct note of schadenfreude, the piece indicated just how far down the social ladder she had fallen. With the ten-year anniversary of Bernie’s arrest approaching, public appetite for this story and curiosity about its principal characters remains robust.
Whether or not Madoff fits the criteria of a sociopath (or a psychopath) has produced numerous conjectures.
One question, in particular, seems to sustain the fascination: Is Bernie Madoff a sociopath? Indeed, in The Wizard of Lies’ closing scene, Madoff (De Niro) asks Diana Henriques a question with which the film concludes, leaving the viewers to answer for themselves: “Do you think I’m a sociopath?” Whether or not Madoff fits the criteria of a sociopath (or a psychopath) has produced numerous conjectures. Actor Richard Dreyfuss claimed, “[he] is a sociopath and that’s a very distinctive thing [from a psychopath]. He never once thinks of, considers, even frames an image of his victims.” Dreyfuss would later admit he didn’t know the “medical definition” of either term. De Niro, asked the same question on a press tour, hedged: “What he did is beyond my comprehension. So there’s a disconnect somehow that I still would like to understand.” Experts have weighed in as well. In an interview with Salon titled, “Is Bernie Madoff a Sociopath?” Brown Professor of psychology Peter Kramer, after much qualification, noted his suspicion that, “in these cases where things go very, very wrong, the obvious diagnosis remains the likely one.” Harvard Professor Eugene Soltes notes in his book Why They Do It, “to a psychiatrist, Madoff displays many symptoms associated with psychopathy. His lack of remorse, failure to take responsibility, inability to plan ahead, and persistent deceitfulness all contribute to such a designation.”
As a sociologist, I am unable to offer a professional diagnosis. But my own sustained conversations with Bernie Madoff over the past five years during his incarceration, included in my new book, Bernie Madoff and the Crisis: The Public Trial of Capitalism, have also made me the target of questions about Madoff’s psychology, most recently for a Planète Justice documentary. Among the characteristics of sociopathic behavior are a list of factors including superficial charm, lack of remorse, unreliability, poor judgment, untruthfulness, pathological egocentricity, and failure to follow any life plan. I and others can offer our conjectures as to whether Madoff falls on the spectrum of sociopathy. I can certainly point to evidence of pathological egocentricity and deceitfulness in our interactions. But I can also point to what I perceive to be genuine remorse and pain experienced by Madoff over the loss of his sons and the way in which his Ponzi impacted them. There is ample room for ambivalence and debate. But, even if psychiatrists could offer conclusive diagnoses, this line of inquiry misses the much larger story about what the decades-long “success” of Madoff’s Ponzi scheme and the disaster left behind in its aftermath. By focusing on Bernie’s condition, we miss our social condition. Put another way, we completely overlook the socio-political milieu that could incubate such massive fraud.
The continued focus on Madoff’s psychology and its relationship to his massive con has most recently led to comparisons between him and Donald Trump. Republican strategist and CNN contributor Ana Navarro tweeted on July 4, 2017, “I wouldn’t be surprised if more Americans trust Bernie Madoff than Trump.” An op-ed in MarketWatch argued “Why Donald Trump is the Bernie Madoff of Politics,” while the Nation ran a piece alleging, “Donald Trump is a worse crook than Bernie Madoff.” Former labor secretary, Robert Reich, described Trump’s behavior as sociopathic, while Trump’s ghostwriter for The Art of the Deal said that, were he writing the book today, he would change the title to The Sociopath. Do you see a pattern?
I wouldn't be surprised if more Americans trust Bernie Madoff than trust Donald Trump. https://t.co/WuL7WplOh1
— Ana Navarro (@ananavarro) July 4, 2017
In focusing on the individual “sociopath,” “devil,” or “monster,” we often lose sight of underlying systemic issues that enable heinous behavior. One of the central insights of my book is that the Madoff case became a proxy for talking about structural problems, such as financial deregulation, risk management failures, widespread fraud on mortgage loans, and so on, which precipitated the financial crisis of 2007-2009. And yet, the crash is a crisis in which Madoff played no part; his fraud was exposed as a result of it! Because of our deeply felt cultural longing to seek an individualist explanation for widespread social problems, his own guilt represented the guilt of the entire system, and produced a sense of vindication for all the wrongs that led to the crisis when “we” sent him to prison for 150 years.
Yet, Madoff’s incarceration in Butner Federal Correctional Institution, and his status as a pop culture reference—all of which focuses on him as an individual—has masked the fact that changes which could guard against another financial crisis, another Ponzi scheme of that scale, are not sufficiently in place.
We often lose sight of underlying systemic issues that enable heinous behavior.
In fact, if any tie-in between Trump and Madoff should be made, it is that Trump has said he wants to do a “big number on Dodd-Frank,” the 2010 act that is meant to curb some of the real abuses that led to the crisis. A New York Times op-ed, reflecting on the Trump administration’s intent to eviscerate the Dodd-Frank legislation, concluded that “it is, sadly, safe to say that we can start counting down to the next crisis now.” The Wall Street lobbyist-backed “Financial Choice Act” recently cleared the House of Representatives in June 2017. If it proceeds, it will not only lead to deregulation, but also “eliminate the Labor Department’s fiduciary rule which requires brokers to act in the best interest of their clients when providing investment advice about retirement.” Additionally, the Securities and Exchange Commission, which was suffering from budgetary constraints that limited its abilities to detect fraud during the Madoff era, is once again preparing for steep cuts under Trump.
If one of the first things we ask about the Madoff Ponzi scheme continues to be “Is he a sociopath?”—and if our thoughts center around whether similar sociopathy unites Madoff and Trump—then we haven’t learned a thing in the ten years. I hate to play Cassandra. But, one of my greatest hopes is that I, and my book, can highlight a vital truth: We’re asking the wrong questions.
Interesting idea. I think that he is a sociopath)
Posted by: grdeminrs | February 12, 2020 at 11:52 PM