Have We Become A Society Of Envy?
“Envy was once considered to be one of the seven deadly sins before it became one of the most admired virtues under its new name, ‘social justice.’” — The Quest for Cosmic Justice By Thomas Sowell
Helmut Schroeck, in his famous book Envy: A Theory of Social Behavior, defines envy as “sorrow for another’s good.”
He goes on to suggest that it may be well more than that, more like ill will towards another’s happiness, success, and possessions. It is more proactive resentment than a passive, internalized sorrow.
In other cases, it can be outright malevolence, as the envier wishes to destroy and humiliate the envied person’s advantages. Often it is destructive for both parties, and the envier will pay a steep personal price rather than acquire the skills and temperament of the successful person they are intent on tearing down. Self-destruction is chosen over self-improvement.
It can also have a remarkably negative influence on the successful. Fear of arousing envy, on the one hand, can promote sensitivity to others and be a positive addition to the social glue. On the other hand, fear of envy can cause successful people to doubt their own contributions and even internalize some of the lies being told about them by the envious. Self-doubt can morph into self-hatred.
This can be especially true of the coddled offspring of a once-productive family. That is why such nepo babies often subsidize and participate in activities to level or deconstruct society. Since they did not put in the effort to produce wealth, they believe it is a product of luck or influence.
Schroeck believes envy is an unfortunate, universal human condition that is often camouflaged in language, culture, and politics. That can make it extremely difficult to detect, analyze, and hence, control.
As an anthropologist and sociologist, he basically says successful societies learn how to deal with it, channel it, temper it, and domesticate it. It can’t be eliminated.
A society saturated with envy will often be superstitious, seeking explanations for differences beyond intelligence, grit, and determination. It will be subject to constant leveling pressure, grow stagnant, and will be resistant to innovation and change. It often seeks to tear down the productive and successful, even though it means worse conditions for everyone.
Historical examples abound: Argentina, South Africa, the UK, California, and most of Western Europe. Some of the rot is surely what Gad Saad calls “suicidal empathy”, but the extreme empathy might be triggered by the fear of being envied and the internalization of the envier’s arguments.
But envy can also be benign, or even positive, acting as a watchdog against hereditary power, unchecked favoritism, and the abuse of power. If channeled through free markets and institutions, that emotion can be directed toward productive behavior. Attitudes such as “I will show them,” “if they can do it, I can,” or “keeping up with the Joneses” can drive the envious into a frenzy of productive activity. The envious can develop a hunger to find out why others are doing better. In short, some people are spurred to emulate the more successful and to engage in self-help and self-education, with a desire to show the world what they have. Rather than tearing down others, their envy spurs them to improve and emulate.
Schroeck distinguishes between personal envy, which is controllable, and collective envy, which is toxic and dangerous.
Private property and the rule of law can help inoculate a society against excessive collective envy. Western religions can help inoculate people at a personal level.
However, when envy moves from the personal stage to the collective stage, it engages government policy, which, by its nature, entails the use of force. Things will get ugly. It will likely lead to socialism, mass grievances, and violence towards those who are more successful.
The society that moves from the idea of equality before the law to egalitarianism, or equal outcomes, will soon be in trouble. Usually, when that happens, they will inevitably find a focal point for their frustration in the natural fact that some people and groups keep doing better than others.
Thomas Sowell has noted that this rage often focuses on small, successful minorities, such as the overseas Chinese, Indian merchants in Africa, Korean grocers, and Jews.
All too often, this involves conspiracy thinking. The more successful got their superior living standards not through the invisible hand of the free market, but through the invisible hand of trickery, manipulation, and guile.
Again, Schroeck does not say that all envy is bad. The measure of a civilization is how effectively it contains envy’s destructive potential while harnessing its regulatory and motivational aspects through norms, institutions, religion, law, and culture.
Remarkably, his book was not translated from the German until 1969, but reading it today, today’s headlines just seem so explainable. Stay tuned for part two of this series, where we will run down current events through this lens.
-Neland Nobel
Neland ‘Neil’ Nobel was born in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, and moved to Arizona in 1961. He attended ASU and earned a B.A. and an M.A. in history, with a specialty in economic and military history. He graduated Summa Cum Laude and received a Richard M. Weaver Fellowship from the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. He spent the next 45 years in the financial services industry, ending his career with a 25-year run with UBS as a portfolio manager and Certified Financial Planner. In retirement, he remains active, having founded the Prickly Pear in 2020 and continuing to contribute content. In his spare time, he is a certified firearms instructor and runs a hiking club and two shooting clubs. He is married with three children and three grandchildren.
