Can psychopaths be productive people?

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Many autistic people are very productive, say as programmers.

What about psychopaths?

Well, may be they wouldn't be productive under anarchist realm where killers just get away.

However, say if a country is just. Say murderers tend to get caught and get death penalty. Even a psychopath, that's selfish, would find out that they are better of becoming programmers than say burglars.

It depends on how you value or measure productivity. Many psychopaths can be found in the top tier of the corporate world.

Psychopaths are often very productive workers in customer service. The most frantic workers I've had the displeasure of working with were psychopaths. I'll bet there are quite a few in advertising. And Hollywood. Under the proper circumstances, nobody works harder than a crazy. As for productive, it depends on how you define productive. In customer service, productive is right up their alley, which is something like "Make sure everyone is happy, and that nobody is complaining enough to cause sufficient stress"

But psychopaths are not programmers. They tend to be leaders.

Not all psychopaths are killers or anything like that. They may just be more likely to become one than others. We use the term to describe the craziest of the crazy, but that doesn't mean that everyone with that particular disorder is that far gone. There are degrees of it, just like everything else. Except pregnancy. There are no degrees of pregnancy. No such thing as a little bit pregnant, you either are or you aren't.

Some features of psychopathy make for effective leadership skills:

Ruthlessness: You use whatever it takes to meet your goals, even if it means that your competitors are run out of business and have to live on the streets. (This is not generally recognized as an autistic trait).

Charisma: You are very charming, and can convince anyone to do anything that needs to be done to meet your goals. (This is not generally recognized as an autistic trait).

Resiliency: You bounce back from a setback and you adapt to the new situation. (This is not generally recognized as an autistic trait).

Anchoring in the Here and the Now: You have no regrets for the past, no worries for tomorrow, and care nothing for what other people think. (This is not generally recognized as an autistic trait).

Hedonism: You derive pleasure from whatever you are doing, whether or not anyone else does. (This is not generally recognized as an autistic trait).

How do all those follow from "not having affective empathy"?

Seems like psychos can be very productive.

Most psychopaths are of very average intelligence and ability. Most are far too chaotic in their personal and professional lives to advance far, although I wouldn't be at all surprised if one or two made it to CEO level. They have qualities that can be useful in business (listed above) but they also have (among other traits) very poor impulse control and are highly likely to get caught committing some kind of white-collar crime or workplace harassment before they get the chance to advance very far. If I were looking for a field in which well-adjusted psychopaths were common, I'd start with surgeons. It takes a very special kind of character to be able to regard the human being on the table as a lump of meat, and to be able to stick a scalpel into them without feeling even a twinge of remorse.