Politics of Envy

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For the envious, says Nietzsche, the supreme victory would be to get those they envy to adopt their perverse inversion of morality and thereby come to despise themselves the way the envious despise them. In On the Genealogy of Morals , he says: Overall, this excellent, eclectic, and thought-provoking book is sure to inspire intense discussion and significant follow-up research."—M.R. Michelson, Choice In summary, the data described here found weak support for the widespread contention that envy and political liberalism are linked, and suggested that what linkage exists is principally due to the tendency of envy to weaken with age (with liberalism weakening somewhat over the same period). However, the relationship between political ideology and sentiments such as envy and resentment is potentially multifaceted and complex, so the topic deserves further empirical study. It is hoped the present article may help spark interest in this potentially rich area of investigation. Conflict of Interest Statement

The upshot is that the gap between executives and the rest has exploded. In 1965, the gap between what a US chief executive earned and the average worker’s pay was 20 to one. Data last week showed that ratio is now 312 to one. The bosses running the top 350 companies are not only pulling away from their employees: they are also pulling away from the 0.1% of top earners. Envy [in Politics] is a brilliant, thought-provoking book that will be studied and referenced for years to come."—Laura Seay, Washington PostIt is a similar story in the UK. Another survey from last week shows the pay of FTSE 100 chief executives rose six times as fast as those of the wider workforce in 2017. In a year when prices rising faster than earnings meant living standards fell for the bulk of the population, those running the biggest quoted companies saw their remuneration going up by 11%. Ministers say the subsequent tariff increases by energy suppliers are “completely unacceptable” and justify the government’s imminent price cap. They urge people to switch. Indeed, in his treatment of the sin of hatred in SummaTheologiae Part II-II, Question 34 , Aquinas identifies envy as its chief source. He says that “since envy is sorrow for our neighbor's good, it follows that our neighbor's good becomes hateful to us, so that ‘out of envy cometh hatred.’” Given the correlations between age, political ideology, and envy, one might wonder whether the relationship between envy and political ideology could be accounted for by the shared variance between age and political ideology. To examine this, we used a Partial Rank Correlation test to compute a partial correlation between political ideology and envy (controlling for age); which did not reveal a significant effect, r(346) =−0.073, p= 0.17. This indicates that there is no detectable relationship between envy and ideology apart from the variance shared with age. Of course, we cannot rule out the possibility that the tiny remaining trend (which would account for less than 1 percent of the variance) could be real. Through surveys, case studies, interviews, and an experiment, McClendon argues that when concerns about in-group status are unmanaged by social conventions or are explicitly primed by elites, status motivations can become drivers of public opinion and political participation. McClendon focuses on the United States and South Africa—two countries that provide tough tests for her arguments while also demonstrating that the arguments apply in different contexts.

The reality is that no single government, let alone an individual, has control over wholesale prices. Consumers with the money can protect themselves from rising energy bills with energy efficiency measures, solar panels and, increasingly, home batteries. Nationally, the only long-term solution is to speed up the switch from fossil fuels to low-carbon energy. verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ Citation: Harris CR and Henniger NE (2013) Envy, politics, and age. Front. Psychol. 4:67. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00067 Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership ‘reboot’ got off to a disastrous start today, with his proposal for an economically illiterate cap on maximum earnings. Or suppose you are sorry that someone enjoys some goodbecause he has gained it unjustly. For example, you might be appalled at Bernie Madoff’s wealth, because he got it dishonestly and seriously harmed many innocent people in doing so. And you might be pleased that he eventually lost these ill-gotten gains and ended up in prison. That is not envy either. It is indignation at injustice, and satisfaction at seeing the wrong eventually corrected (however imperfectly in this case).These investigations usually involve an interview, with those suspected of transgression asked to adjust their behaviour or face fines.

In the short term, wholesale costs look to be heading in one direction. The US imposition of sanctions against countries that import Iranian crude from November could drive up oil, and therefore gas, prices. All of this is part of that other fairytale: meritocracy. If we were a meritocratic society, we would do away with private education tomorrow, because we would trust our children to be able to get on in the world. Instead, we have this very peculiar roleplay, where the rich and powerful present themselves as being victims of the class system. It’s not easy being posh. Nietzsche’s account of envy is consistent with Aquinas’s (even if, again, his application of this analysis to a critique of Christianity is certainly not). But there are differences of emphasis. Like Aquinas, Nietzsche takes envy to involve sorrow at another person’s possessing more of some good. But he consistently focuses on the greater power of others as that which the envious person cannot bear. Like Aquinas, Nietzsche takes hatred to be envy’s natural sequel. But he puts much greater emphasis on how envy and the hatred it spawns can harden into a seething and poisonous ressentiment intent on destroying its object.

On the other hand, one could argue that even if the true effect size of the correlation between envy and political liberalism is quite small, it might still be meaningful in the context of American politics. For example, as a reviewer points out, in presidential elections, the margins for the popular vote are often razor thin. One need only think of the Bush-Gore presidential election to see how close elections can be (where hanging chads could tip the balance). Therefore, even a small advantage provided by an emotion such as envy might be having important effects in the world.