Sociopathy is a human condition where a person does not empathize with other people. A sociopath does not engage their own feelings in step with the feelings of the people around them. As a result sociopaths do not develop deep friendships or relationships in general, and do not engage society in a meaningful or colorful manner.
Sociopaths tend to engage others in a transactional manner. Sociopaths look for certain cues to respond to in a manner they consider to be appropriate. Cue → response → cue → response steps form the transactions. An example of a transactional relationship for normal people occurs in the grocery-store line. There are an expected number of steps and expected responses. Sociopaths extend such transactional scenarios into inappropriate contexts, such as in outings, friendships, and even marriage. Such people look at their friendships and even marriages as transactional scenarios that are supposed to follow certain protocols. Sometimes these protocols refer to emotional tag words, but there is a lack of true feeling. Needless to say such a marriage is barren and bereft of the color and meaning that develops in a normal relationship.
A cycle here refers to a change over time. For example, weather cycles through the seasons. Generally within a cycle there is a progression or development. This progression repeats in the next cycle, typically with some variations. For example, not all winters are the same, but they are all identified as winters.
Malthus proposed a social cycle based on population growth. He identifies a particular area with a relatively small population with respect to the potential of the land to support them. However, the population grows. Eventually the population exceeds the carrying capacity of the land, so something has to give. Malthus suggests this is the prime mover behind war. He argues that the social and political pressures of the sort that lead to war are mechanical consequences of human perception of approaching the carrying capacity of the land. It may even involve conscious decisions taken on the part of leaders who take advantage of the situation. Disease can expand the cycle as it reduces population.
Hobbes describes what I think is a related phenomenon. In his book The Leviathan he describes how government agencies grow into sort of monsters. Once a government agency is established, the people in that agency work to justify the agency's success. Success for a government agency includes expanded budgets, growth in personnel, and promotion opportunities for its leaders. This definition of success leaves out all indicators of whether the agency efficiently performs a needed function or not.
Government agencies are not judged against a market need for their services but rather by success in gathering funding in a political arena. This also applies to large corporations and enterprises with captive markets.
Hence, as population increases in the Malthusian cycle, so does the inefficiency and size of government and big business. The apparent consequence is war implemented with a bureaucratic military involving a country's large corporations.
I suggest that there is another component to the cycle: an increase in sociopathy in the population. Accordingly, immediately after a cataclysm people care a great deal about each other and constructively participate in building society. People are thankful for small things such as their families and communities. The emphasis is upon building up, and anti-social behavior such as stealing and taking advantage of situations is actively suppressed.
As time passes and population increases, the memory of the cataclysm fades. The second generation does not have first-hand memories, but only knows the stories told and the look in people's eyes as they told them. They learn the values taught to them but do not necessarily understand how they fit in place. At this stage one does not participate in building society — it has already been built. Rather, one accepts opportunities to belong to existing institutions. The growth of the Leviathan is a natural consequence of individuals competing for the betterment of their families.
The third generation sees the stories of the first generation as history. The Leviathans themselves have reached the carrying capacity of society, so competition is largely over ownership of distribution channels rather than over innovation and frontier building. Egotism is highly rewarded. Everyone is in it for themselves. Attorneys practice to make a profit, not to help their clients, and there are severe departures where these two goals do not overlap. Bankers are in it for personal profit rather than for directing the flow of capital, and again there are severe departures between these two goals. Researchers are more interested in making money than making a contribution to human knowledge. Consequently, the legal system, financial system, and system of academics in this late stage all suffer.
The stages in the sociopathy cycle can be identified from the vocabulary of the populace involved at each stage, as “a new day” and “venture capital” give way to “Ponzi scheme” and “faked data.”
At the final stage the system no longer functions, and there is a crash. This crash causes people to suffer and typically for the population to nose-dive. After the crash the people who are left look in repugnance at the egotists who never took into account the greater good but rather only thought of themselves no matter the damage. These people adopt new values. They become the new first generation for the next cycle.
The bailout only applied to the finance sector rather than the whole population, and even in this sector it failed to create a new “first generation” — that is, a generation of participating builders rather than a generation of “extract whatever we can.”