The possessed character of our financial, industrial and political leaders, is psychologically evident from the very fact that they are at the mercy of a suprapersonal factor - work, power, money, or whatever they like to call it - which, in the telling phrase, consumes them and leaves them little or no room as private persons. Coupled with a nihilistic attitude towards civilization and humanity there goes a puffing up of the ego-sphere which expresses itself with brutish egotism in a total disregard for the common good and in the attempt to lead an egocentric existence, where personal power, money, and experiences - unbelievably trivial, but plentiful - occupy every hour of the day.

The Origin and History of Consciousness by Erich Neumann