God is a Capitalist

by Roger McKinney

  The emphasis in the definitions of “envy” and “envying” in Webster’s third edition, is laid on the desire to possess what belongs to the other, not to see it destroyed. Indeed, this shift in emphasis corresponds almost exactly to the present American view of envy. Thus an American advertisement is able to declare that one should buy this or that in order to be envied – that is to say, so that the other man should at once do his utmost to get the same thing, not, as in earlier cultures, that he should try to damage it out of spite.

  Envy has not ceased to exist because human nature has not changed in the last two generations; we have only ignored it. Since WWII we have absorbed envy into the definition of social justice. Social justice requires equality of outcomes, especially wealth, not just equal treatment under the law. Schoeck demonstrates that the insistence on equality of outcomes is the leading symptom of the disease of envy. By defining envy as justice we have expunged it from the deadly sins and elevated it to a virtue, Schoeck wrote.

  In socialist economists such as Abba P. Lerner, we find the envy-motive used indirectly, appearing now as a social virtue. Thus, a progressively rising income tax is proposed on the grounds that, for the psychological good of the collective, the appeasement of envy in the normal wage-earner – on witnessing the penalties of the highly paid – was quantitatively more important and beneficial than the discomfiture of the few, despoiled by the state for the benefit of the envious. This thesis overlooks the fact that there are countless, and often far more painful, occasions for envy than those few really large incomes or inheritances which can be mulcted; it also overlooks the fact that by raising envy to the status of virtue in the interest of the state one only intensifies the suffering of those with a truly envious disposition because politicians feel compelled continually to reveal new “inequalities” in the society.

  The French economist Thomas Piketty has tossed fuel on the fire of envy in the West with the release of his book Capital in the Twenty-First Century in 2013. Piketty has built his career around the subject of inequality and the book became a bestseller in the U.S. He warns that unless governments punish high earners, inequality will spiral out of control and lead to revolutions. He wrote, “A rate of 80 percent applied to incomes above $500,000 or $1 million a year would not bring the government much in the way of revenue, because it would quickly fulfill its objective: to drastically reduce remuneration at this level…” And later he said, “The primary purpose of the capital tax is not to finance the social state but to regulate capitalism.” The tax will not lift the poor because it will not bring in enough revenue; it will only punish high income earners. That is a confession of envy.

  We need to rediscover the old vice in order to understand its ubiquitous nature and iniquitous consequences. Envy is a close relative of covetousness and jealousy, but covetousness has the positive goal to obtain something that another possesses while jealously seeks to protect what one has from loss. Currently, American English has no word for the deadly evil so feared throughout history and literature. Schoeck had to fall back on a definition of envy from the 1912 edition of the Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics:

  Envy is an emotion that is essentially both selfish and malevolent. It is aimed at persons, and implies dislike of one who possesses what the envious man himself covets or desires, and a wish to harm him. Grasping-ness for self and ill-will lie at the basis of it. There is in it also a consciousness of inferiority to the person envied, and a chafing under this consciousness. He who has got what I envy is felt by me to have the advantage of me, and I resent it. Consequently, I rejoice if he finds that his envied possession does not give him entire satisfaction – much more, if it actually entails on him dissatisfaction and pain; that simply reduces his superiority in my eyes, and ministers to my feelings of self-importance. As signifying in the envious man a want that is ungratified, and as pointing to a sense of impotence inasmuch as he lacks the sense of power which possession of the desired object would give him, envy is in itself a painful emotion, although it is associated with pleasure when misfortune is seen to befall the object of it.

  And Schoeck found a definition from a German dictionary that includes the essential elements of envy:

  Today, as in earlier language, envy [Neid] expresses that vindictive and inwardly tormenting frame of mind, the displeasure with which one perceives the prosperity and the advantages of others, begrudges them these things and in addition wishes one were able to destroy or to possess them oneself: synonymous with malevolence, ill-will, the evil eye.

  The nature of envy becomes clearer through illustrations from travels through ancient literature psychology and anthropology. For example, Schoeck noted that Genesis 26:14, 15 in the Bible records, “For he had possession of flocks, and possession of herds...and the Philistines envied him. For all the wells which his father’s servants had digged...the Philistines had stopped them, and filled them with earth.” Schoeck pointed out that “In this respect, human nature has changed little since Old Testament times. Envy of a neighbour’s herd of cattle and an assault on his water supply are the order of the day in many a village community in present-day South America, for example.”

  Classical Greek used the word phthoneo to “express the envy which makes one grudge another something which he himself desires...,” according to The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology. Aristotle defined jealousy as the desire to have what another has without harboring any ill feeling against the other, while envy seeks to deprive the other man of the thing rather than possess it. Xenophon wrote, “The envious are those who are annoyed only at their friends’ successes.” The Apostles Mark and Matthew attribute to envy the motive for the Jewish leadership handing over Christ to Pilate for execution (Mark 15:10). In the Epistles, envy is portrayed as a typical feature of the lives of non-Christians and something over which believers should gain victory through the power of the Holy Spirit.

  But the most powerful passage on envy in the New Testament does not use the word for envy. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus taught about the proper relationship to wealth of those who claim to follow him. Matthew 6:19-21 instructs believers to focus less on amassing wealth in this life and more on investing in heaven. Verse twenty-four is the famous passage on the impossibility of serving two masters, God and mammon, or material wealth. He did not mean that material wealth is evil; only that we cannot allow the desire for it master us.

  In verse twenty-three, sandwiched between the two passages on material wealth, Jesus said, “The eye is the lamp of the body. So if your eye is sound, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is not sound, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is that darkness.” One would think that the context would suggest to interpreters that the passage has something to do with the attitude of the believer to wealth, but all of the commentators I read missed the point. Most make the verses mean something about spiritual sight. It is more likely that Jesus is playing on the idiom of the “evil eye.” Readers outside of the West will recognize the true meaning instantly because fear of the evil eye is ancient and permeates most non-Western cultures. Jesus is warning believers of the deadly sin of envy.

  Schoeck wrote that poets throughout history have stressed aspects of envy: envy requires social proximity; few peasants envy the prince; the envious person afflicts all places and times; his imagination nourishes envy and makes it live long. Chaucer mentioned envy more than eighty times. “The Parson’s Tale” in the Canterbury Tales concerns the seven deadly sins.

  But Chaucer sees envy as the worst of sins because nearly all the rest oppose only one virtue, whereas envy turns against all the virtues and against everything that is good. It denies, as we would now say, every value in the scale or table of values. Because the envious man takes exception to his neighbour’s every virtue and advantage, the sin of envy is distinct from all others. Every other kind of sin is in itself pleasurable, to some degree productive of satisfaction, b
ut envy produces only anguish and sorrow. Chaucer holds envy to be a sin against nature because it consists in the first place of distress over other people’s goodness and prosperity, and prosperity is naturally a matter of joy. In the second place envy consists of joy in the ills and suffering that befall others. This envy is like the devil, who always rejoices in human suffering.

  Milton shows the function of envy in the story of the creation of mankind in his Paradise Lost:

  Who first seduced them to that foul revolt?

  Th ‘infernal serpent! He it was whose guile,

  Stirred up with envy and revenge, deceived

  The mother of mankind...

  Satan – so call him now; his former name

  Is heard no more in heav’n – he of the first

  If not the first Archangel, great in power,

  In favour and pre-eminence, yet fraught

  With envy against the Son of God, that day

  Honoured by his great Father, and proclaimed

  Messiah King anointed, could not bear.

  Thro’ pride that sight, and thought himself impaired.

  The myth of primitive innocence

  Schoeck explored the great literature of ancient Greece, Rome and Europe to demonstrate the sensitivity of pre-modern intellectuals to the problem of envy and their deep understanding of its destructive consequences. Then he turned to anthropology to discover if envy exists in primitive cultures. He paid particular attention to primitive tribes because of the long standing myth in the West that such cultures were the remnants of an ancient Golden Age free from envy. According to historian Richard Pipes, the myth of a Golden Age for mankind deep in the pre-historic past has roots in the opposition to inequality:

  The outstanding quality of this mythical past is the absence of private ownership: in the Golden Age everything is said to have been held in common and the words “mine” and “thine” were unknown. Since...no society has ever existed without some kind of property, the vision of an ideal propertyless world must be grounded not in collective memory but in collective longing. It is inspired by the belief that inequalities of status and wealth are ‘unnatural.’ They have to be man-made, not God-made: for are not all beings born equal and, upon death, do they not turn alike to dust?

  Europeans in the middle ages believed that on the edges of civilization primitive people still lived out the Golden Age without private property and therefore without the crimes that afflicted their own societies. When Columbus discovered the tribes of the Americas, Europeans assumed he had stumbled upon one of those Golden Age tribes and that mistake birthed the idea of the “noble savage.” Schoeck devoted large sections of his book to examining the anthropology of primitive tribes in an attempt to dispel that myth. The following offers a small sampling of his discoveries.

  Among the Navajo, the largest tribe in the U.S., there was no concept of personal success or achievement, good or bad luck. Any kind of success came only at the expense of others. Tribal members responded to their own success with lavish hospitality and gifts in order to prevent other members from becoming envious and using magic against them. The Navajo believed that those who attained old age had done so at the expense of younger people through magic and were suspicious of the rich and the poor as well as talented singers. They assumed the rich and talented had used magic to gain at the expense of others while the poor would use magic against others.

  The Hopi, another North American tribe, had a general rule against bragging because people might steal the property of the boaster or use magic against him out of envy. The Zuni disliked competitive behavior and sacrificed individuality for the collective. The Comanche tribe limited warriors to the ages between twenty and forty-five. An older warrior who failed to leave the warrior society gracefully was suspected of using magic against other members out of envy. The Comanche preferred chiefs who had not distinguished themselves as warriors so they could leave the warrior society gracefully. The Pueblo tribe liquidated specialist skills needed for the tribes’ development by destroying the property of anyone suspected of using his skills for personal gain.

  In Polynesia, a lucky fisherman had to deal with the potential envy of fellow fishermen in his group. If he caught fish when others failed, he gave his fish to the others for if his kept his catch and allowed the others to go home empty-handed he risked harm from envy.

  Hunters of the Siriono tribe in Bolivia ate at night with their wives and children in order to prevent having to share their meat with other members of the tribe. If they dared to eat in the day time, tribal members would gather around and demand a share. The Siriono hoarded food and accused each other of stealing. Females had been known to hide meat in their vagina. A hunter returning from an expedition would often hide his animal outside the village and pretend to have failed then return after dark to recover it and share it only with his immediate family. In Central American tribal cultures, envy was considered a crime. The victim of an illness caused by envy held the right to kill the envious enemy if he could be discovered.

  The many proverbs warning against envy among the Azande tribe in Africa advertise their preoccupation with it. They feared that the envy of other tribal members would encourage the envious person to use magic against them. They looked upon every tribal member as a potential enemy and practitioner of magic. If they envied another, they tried to disguise it to prevent the envied person from using magic against them in his own defense. Physically deformed people, the unfriendly, bad-tempered, dirty, quarrelsome and secretive were seen as potential witches. The Azande member knew that others would envy him for his possessions, his lineage, appearance, and skills as a hunter, singer or public speaker and look for ways to destroy him, but he had spells to neutralize the attacks. The tribe had no concept of luck; another tribal member caused every good or bad event.

  Members of the Amba tribe in East Africa practiced sorcery in order to deprive other members of something or punish them for possessing wealth or fame earned through heroic deeds. A person could protect himself only by avoiding accomplishments that might attract the attention of envious people.

  The Sukuma of East Africa ostracized members suspected of sorcery, sometimes expelling them, because they believed their envy was insatiable. Fear of what harm the envious sorcerer might do has led to lynchings. They accused successful or prosperous members of using sorcery to achieve their success.

  Thus in every society there are at least two possible tendencies and manifestations of envy to be reckoned with: the man who is not well off, or only moderately so, may be seized with envy against relatives or neighbours and practice destructive magic and arson. The victim and other more or less interested persons may attribute to him the motive of envy. As suspicion grows, everyone in the community, whether rich or only fairly prosperous, is driven to fear the incurably envious man. Eventually he may be expelled. The danger to the group lies in the destructive envy of an individual – the sorcerer.

  This situation can also be reversed, in which case social tension arises from the envy felt by several persons against one who may be richer, more popular or more successful than they. The majority then spread the rumour that the happy man owes his success to illicit sorcery. Tanner mentions a notorious case in Sukumaland: A chief was suspected of employing the spirits of dead fellow tribesmen for the cultivation of his fields as the number of people to be seen working there was not enough to explain their excellence and yield.

  Anyone known to have been resentful, was unpopular, had an unpleasant face, was unusually old, who reaped better harvests, hunted more successfully or received favor from their European masters was suspected of envy-sorcery among the Lovedu tribe in Africa. The dominating motive in instances of witchcraft was envy. Any technological gadget, such as a sewing machine, elicited envy. Other instigators of envy included the ability to drive a car, find work in town, dance well, enjoy prestige, physical attractiveness, bride prices, acquiring possessions and yields from cattle herds.

  In Ha
iti peasant farmers would disguise their wealth by purchasing several small plots of land and working them by hand instead of one large field in which they could employ machinery to improve productivity. They would not wear good clothes even if they could afford them in order to keep from inflaming envy in others.

  A study conducted in a mountain village in Jamaica made up of former slaves revealed that only 3 percent of the adults needed assistance, yet no matter how wealthy a person might have been he believed that everyone else was better off. Inquiring about a person’s financial circumstances was intolerable. Nearly everyone in the village thought that his neighbor disliked and was envious of him. Suspicion made it impossible for families to pool resources on large projects or for anyone to take a leading role in village.

  Men of the Mambwe tribe of Northern Rhodesia who got an education from a mission school were able to get work in nearby towns. That increased envy in others, especially members of the chief’s family, because commoners were able to acquire wealth equal to that of the chief. Successful men often had to leave the village. One was accused of having the power to train crows to steal grain from the bins of neighbors and bring it to his own bins. Villagers suspect successful farmers among the Mambwe of using sorcery, not of using better agricultural methods.

  Fear of the envy of others afflicted all decision making in the poor villages of Mexico. People practiced extreme secretiveness and concealed all private matters. Men rarely revealed plans to buy, sell or take a trip. Women did not tell other women outside the immediate family about a pregnancy, a new dress or a special dinner. People could rely only on their immediate family members and community projects were virtually impossible. Few informed the owner of property if something damaged it. If a pig was killed by a bus, the owner would not learn about it until the other villagers had carved the best meat from the carcass. While envy may not have provoked a person to harm another, it often persuaded him to do nothing to avert another’s harm. Altruism, generosity, charity, and sharing were absent. People did favors for others only to get favors in the future. Parents scolded children for giving things to friends and for trusting persons outside the family.