Economics of Abuse

Economic thought is of enormous use in psychology. An economist knows when someone is being unfairly compensated, falsely advertised to, stolen from, or slandered and injured in order to keep them in a raw deal. And what we see in abusive relationships is one or all of these things.

There are people who come on being nice when wooing, then turn into monsters when the person that they've wooed is theirs. In business, that's known as false advertising, and the same concept can rightfully be applied to relationships, where what's at stake is not a mere product but people's lives. If someone does that to you, they've deceived you, and you have every right for returning the product or leaving the relationship. You have been given a false demo. You've been deceived. Trying to make things "work out" only empowers the deception and makes more people believe that deception is the way to go. The only way to ethical outcome is to see the deception, know everything based on deception to be based on false premises and hence made corrupt, and leave on the grounds of having been given false advertising.

There are people who want to make the partner believe themselves worthless, damaged, evil or insane.The correct response to such people is: "If I'm this way, then why do you want to be with me? What's wrong with you? Can't you find yourself someone whom you can respect, or did you want me so that you can treat me like rubbish? And what does that say about you?" Basically, if the person sees you that way, then for them to stay with you is an act of dishonesty. There is no reason why any sane person would be with someone he or she sees in that manner; and their act of remaining with that person shows the things they say for the lie that they are.

The people who do the latter commit, basically, a theft. They fail to value what they want, fail to reward it, and want to feed on it without adequately compensating it for the utility that they get. So then they want the partner (and frequently others) to think that her value is low or negative, when their choice of staying with the person shows that they get utility from being with her that they would not get from being with somebody else. Which means that they are committing a theft, and that their actions are corrupt in entirety. Which busts whatever pretensions toward sanity or morality that they may assert.

The greater the amount of bludgeoning the person into believing her as having negative value, the more apparent the injustice intended or committed against her. We see this on social level all the time. A valuable worker can only be made to work without adequate compensation if they or the market believe they are unworthy, or if they are threatened or menaced or undermined in one or another way. If the person were truly worthless, then the partner would not be with her. And if he is with her and wants her to think that she is worthless, then his behavior of staying with her is a refutation of his claims.

Psychological violence is preparation for injustice and way by which it is maintained. Not only is it violation in its own right - sometimes extreme violation; but much more apparently, it is a way to reduce in the person's mind (and that of others) the value of themselves, in order that they could acquiesce to an arrangement where they are given a raw deal. This is true especially in these cases: When someone is with someone who is not willing to treat them according to their merits; when someone is being treated like rubbish, whatever their actual worth; when someone is being bludgeoned - physically, morally, or legally - into a situation where they are treated for less than their merits; or when someone is being

brainwashed into staying in cultures or situations where they are unappreciated or treated like trash.

So if you find yourself being subject by your partner to hounding, battery, character assassination and slander, you know that not only are you with a bastard, but that an injustice is being done to you. Not only are those things in themselves are injustice, but they are artificial ways to maintain injustice by twisting your view of self and others' view of you to be artificially negative. These things, when found in a relationship or in a culture, are certain evidence of a personal or a systemic injustice. The more these things are found, the greater the injustice that they are used to maintain.