there is an interesting tendency that many psychologists pointed out: in many professions for some reason psychopaths tend to get to the top an stay there. Specifically CEOs tend to be people with most psychopathic traits:
https://www.businessinsider.com/professions-with-the-most-ps...
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wisdom-Psychopaths-Saints-Killers-S...
Now consider for a second, if you have psychopaths with money running the companies - why would they be interested in well being of their employees?
I am not saying every CEO is a psycho, but many are (as research shows):
https://hbr.org/2004/10/executive-psychopaths
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy_in_the_workplace
https://www.forbes.com/sites/victorlipman/2013/04/25/the-dis...
> ...are there millions of Ted Bundys out there who never actually killed anyone and even lead productive lives?
I think the answer to this is probably yes-ish. The thing about people like Ted Bundy is that he wasn't JUST a psychopath. He was also sadistic, and probably some other characteristics [2]. The reason I say "yes" though is that there are certainly a lot of psychopaths (however you want to define the parameters of the definition) out there leading productive and "normal" lives without killing anyone.
Now, if I may indulge my own pet ideas...
Psychopaths have certainly been with us forever. Having no empathy, conscience or remorse and also being sexually promiscuous makes for a fairly effective survival and reproductive strategy outside of the modern context (see the Ghengis Khan effect [3]). On the flip side, they also probably killed each other off pretty regularly too (which would have had some possible cyclical effects). This leads one to ponder what role the psychopath might play in modernity. And it doesn't take too long to get some unsurprising / interesting results [4][5]. I'd say that one of the features of capitalism is that it can effectively (but not perfectly) convert volatile/psychopathic personalities into value for society. Where a psychopath might have been an Attila the Hun in historical past, he might be Steve Jobs today. Of course, as someone else pointed out, he might also be Dick Cheney too. Thankfully, nations have adopted political and governing structures designed to mitigate the damage one psychopathic person can do. When I see things like extreme inequality in America I wonder what role psychopaths are playing and if perhaps we're entering a phase where we may have to institute some enduring controls on the more emergent(?) psychopathic tendencies in our economic systems (as presaged by "The Corporation"?[6]). Anyway, don't want to beat a dead horse. Suffice to say, I find it amusing (and admittedly dangerous) to view history and current events through a lens of who-are-the-likely-psychopaths. Thought I'd share.
[1] http://www.amazon.com/The-Wisdom-Psychopaths-Killers-Success...
[2] There are groups of traits that, when combined, don't form Captain Planet. Instead they're associated with bad mojo. See the Dark Triad (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_triad) and the MacDonald Triad (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macdonald_triad).
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descent_from_Genghis_Khan#DNA_e...
[4] http://www.spring.org.uk/2013/07/which-professions-have-the-...
[5] http://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/law-enforceme...
I found this[0] which on a cursory reading doesn't seem to support the above. There was also a pop-sci book[1] which seems to argue the above, but I don't know how much weight I put behind it (and I'm not curious enough to get the book and look for references.)
Does anyone know of any data or research to support or refute the claim "law enforcement has a higher rate of sociopathy than the general population"?
[0] https://sci-hub.ru/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2018.08.002
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Wisdom-Psychopaths-Saints-Killers-Suc...