"It might seem crazy to entertain, but having seen first-hand that these folks can consistently climb and succeed while being what most decent people would consider scumbags..."

One of my best friends is a psychiatrist at a large academic hospital. He works with "corporate leaders" and top athletes (college level and above). He says in his 5 years of practice, he has not yet seen a "successful" person who does not exhibit a significant degree of sociopathic behavior. He goes as far as saying that being sociopathic is an asset if you are trying to be successful in any hyper competitive human endeavor (politics, business, sports etc).