In the 18th century, the political philosopher and novelist Jean-Jacques Rousseau made a distinction between amour de soi and amour propre. The former involved striking a balance between regard for one’s own welfare and well-being and the empathy that one owed and felt towards others. It was another phrase for self-love, self-regard, and self-awareness. The latter – amour proper – was all about grandiose and malignant narcissism, an unseemly conflation of self-gratification and conceited haughtiness, and the insatiable need to be reflected in the gaze of others as the only path to self-knowledge. Amour de soi was transformed into amour propre by the acquisition of property and the greed and envy that it, inevitably, provoked.
Conservative sociologists self-servingly marvel at the peaceful proximity of abject poverty and ostentatious affluence in American – or, for that matter, Western – cities. Devastating riots do erupt, but these are reactions either to perceived social injustice (Los Angeles 1965) or to political oppression (Paris 1968). The French Revolution may have been the last time the urban sans-culotte raised a fuss against the economically enfranchised.
This pacific co-existence conceals a maelstrom of envy. Behold the rampant Schadenfreude which accompanied the antitrust case against the predatory but loaded Microsoft. Observe the glee which engulfed many destitute countries in the wake of the September 11 atrocities against America, the epitome of triumphant prosperity. Witness the post-World.com orgiastic castigation of avaricious CEO’s.
Envy – a pathological manifestation of destructive aggressiveness – is distinct from jealousy.
The New Oxford Dictionary of English defines envy as:
“A feeling of discontented or resentful longing aroused by someone else’s possessions, qualities, or luck … Mortification and ill-will occasioned by the contemplation of another’s superior advantages.”
Pathological envy – the fourth deadly sin – is engendered by the realization of some lack, deficiency, or inadequacy in oneself. The envious begrudge others their success, brilliance, happiness, beauty, good fortune, or wealth. Envy provokes misery, humiliation, and impotent rage.
The envious copes with his pernicious emotions in five ways:
- They attack the perceived source of frustration in an attempt to destroy it, or “reduce it” to their “size”. Such destructive impulses often assume the disguise of championing social causes, fighting injustice, touting reform, or promoting an ideology.
- They seek to subsume the object of envy by imitating it. In extreme cases, they strive to get rich quick through criminal scams, or corruption. They endeavor to out-smart the system and shortcut their way to fortune and celebrity.
- They resort to self-deprecation. They idealize the successful, the rich, the mighty, and the lucky and attribute to them super-human, almost divine, qualities. At the same time, they humble themselves. Indeed, most of this strain of the envious end up disenchanted and bitter, driving the objects of their own erstwhile devotion and adulation to destruction and decrepitude.
- They experience cognitive dissonance. These people devalue the source of their frustration and envy by finding faults in everything they most desire and in everyone they envy.
- They avoid the envied person and thus the agonizing pangs of envy.
Envy is not a new phenomenon. Belisarius, the general who conquered the world for Emperor Justinian, was blinded and stripped of his assets by his envious peers. I – and many others – have written extensively about envy in command economies. Nor is envy likely to diminish.
In his book, “Facial Justice”, Hartley describes a post-apocalyptic dystopia, New State, in which envy is forbidden and equality extolled and everything enviable is obliterated. Women are modified to look like men and given identical “beta faces”. Tall buildings are razed.
Joseph Schumpeter, the prophetic Austrian-American economist, believed that socialism will disinherit capitalism. In “Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy” he foresaw a conflict between a class of refined but dirt-poor intellectuals and the vulgar but filthy rich businessmen and managers they virulently envy and resent. Samuel Johnson wrote: “He was dull in a new way, and that made many people think him great.” The literati seek to tear down the market economy which they feel has so disenfranchised and undervalued them.
Hitler, who fancied himself an artist, labeled the British a “nation of shopkeepers” in one of his bouts of raging envy. Ralph Reiland, the Kenneth Simon professor of free enterprise at Robert Morris University, quotes David Brooks of the “weekly Standard”, who christened this phenomenon “bourgeoisophobia”:
“The hatred of the bourgeoisie is the beginning of all virtue’ – wrote Gustav Flaubert. He signed his letters ‘Bourgeoisophobus’ to show how much he despised ‘stupid grocers and their ilk … Through some screw-up in the great scheme of the universe, their narrow-minded greed had brought them vast wealth, unstoppable power and growing social prestige.”
Reiland also quotes from Ludwig van Mises’s “The Anti-Capitalist Mentality”:
“Many people, and especially intellectuals, passionately loathe capitalism. In a society based on caste and status, the individual can ascribe adverse fate to conditions beyond his control. In … capitalism … everybody’s station in life depends on his doing … (what makes a man rich is) not the evaluation of his contribution from any ‘absolute’ principle of justice but the evaluation on the part of his fellow men who exclusively apply the yardstick of their personal wants, desires and ends … Everybody knows very well that there are people like himself who succeeded where he himself failed. Everybody knows that many of those he envies are self-made men who started from the same point from which he himself started. Everybody is aware of his own defeat. In order to console himself and to restore his self- assertion, such a man is in search of a scapegoat. He tries to persuade himself that he failed through no fault of his own. He was too decent to resort to the base tricks to which his successful rivals owe their ascendancy. The nefarious social order does not accord the prizes to the most meritorious men; it crowns the dishonest, unscrupulous scoundrel, the swindler, the exploiter, the ‘rugged individualist’.”
In “The Virtue of Prosperity”, Dinesh D’Souza accuses prosperity and capitalism of inspiring vice and temptation. Inevitably, it provokes envy in the poor and depravity in the rich.
With only a modicum of overstatement, capitalism can be depicted as the sublimation of jealousy. As opposed to destructive envy – jealousy induces emulation. Consumers – responsible for two thirds of America’s GDP – ape role models and vie with neighbors, colleagues, and family members for possessions and the social status they endow. Productive and constructive competition – among scientists, innovators, managers, actors, lawyers, politicians, and the members of just about every other profession – is driven by jealousy.
The eminent Nobel prize winning British economist and philosopher of Austrian descent, Friedrich Hayek, suggested in “The Constitution of Liberty” that innovation and progress in living standards are the outcomes of class envy. The wealthy are early adopters of expensive and unproven technologies. The rich finance with their conspicuous consumption the research and development phase of new products. The poor, driven by jealousy, imitate them and thus create a mass market which allows manufacturers to lower prices.
But jealousy is premised on the twin beliefs of equality and a level playing field. “I am as good, as skilled, and as talented as the object of my jealousy.” – goes the subtext – “Given equal opportunities, equitable treatment, and a bit of luck, I can accomplish the same or more.”
Jealousy is easily transformed to outrage when its presumptions – equality, honesty, and fairness – prove wrong. In a paper recently published by Harvard University’s John M. Olin Center for Law and titled “Executive Compensation in America: Optimal Contracting or Extraction of Rents?” the authors argue that executive malfeasance is most effectively regulated by this “outrage constraint”:
“Directors (and non-executive directors) would be reluctant to approve, and executives would be hesitant to seek, compensation arrangements that might be viewed by observers as outrageous.”
Interesting piece yet, at best, too insubstantial to support the title. The author begins by citing Rousseau, who clearly delineated the general will and the will of all, not first and foremost for the sake of analyzing psychological components. And not for the purpose of fortifying or refuting the role of envy as a core element of Capitalism. The general will is ideally a mindset suited for the welfare of society — sort of a Platonic ideal — versus the will of all that represents the broad spectrum of individual aims and desires, many of which have nothing or little to do with narcissism. They’re simply a composite of subjective notions, i.e., all dog walkers must be made to pick up after their dogs, or all education should be free, that exist within any culture. In the end, Rousseau signifies, a wise democracy is attuned to the general will for the sake of optimizing the halls of governance.
To substantiate that envy is an inextricable part of Capitalism, the author would’ve been better served to cite Saint-Simon, who denounced laissez-faire Capitalism, Marx and Engels who diagrammed the indignities of bourgeois values, Thorstein Veblen who coined the term, conspicuous consumption, the plethora of advertising gurus, including George Lois (If you’ve got it, flaunt it), who embedded their work and popular brands with stimulants to foment envy in order for Americans “to keep up with the Jones’s,” and last but not least Daniel Bell who claimed that the introduction of the credit card initiated the institutionalization of envy within the culture at large. Quite simply, envy has served as a means for untold riches, not only in capitalist societies but in all cultures. Rousseau in his essays on inequality mentioned that some natives wore more precious beads than underlings did.
Though, officially, envy is associated with inordinate desires, isn’t it quite natural for many of us, perhaps even most of us, reared in a society captivated by celebrity, fame, wealth, and power, to at least be somewhat envious of those who are better looking, more prosperous, and more successful? The question is, What is natural in such behavior and what is promoted and accelerated by Capitalism? And if Capitalism does, in fact, play a pivotal role in promoting and accelerating envy, What are the net benefits and deficits? No doubt, prosperity over the years has been higher than it would be in a decidedly ascetic culture in which people restricted their wants. But is the nagging sense of inadequacy in a rigorously envious culture worth the higher degree of wealth? How many school shooters, prompted by feelings of comparative insignificance, are driven to even the score in their own twisted way? How many anti-anxiety pills, anti-depressants, or serious pain killers are taken to mollify the sense of inadequacy resulting from the sense of never being able to keep up with the Jones’s?
There’s much to consider regarding the concept of envy, but in merely conflating it with narcissism, the spectrum of viable ideas is just too small. Yes, America seems right now to be plagued by some form of narcissisticisis, yet sadly the association between Capitalism and envy is far more consequential. And moreover, the unwillingness to address such profound issues is even more disturbing.