The Politics Of Envy

The Politics Of Envy | The Last Refuge

“The rich should pay their fair share.” 

…”when you spread the wealth around it’s good for everybody.”

“Nobody’s ideas or effort are really that much more innately valuable than that of their peers. You can, however, use your abilities to steal that much money.”

”The central lie here being getting rich through hard, honest work. I don’t think anyone has ever gotten rich without the determination of screwing other people out of their money.”

“Romney never created any jobs. He only created wealth for his partners. There is a big difference.”

“If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”

I am very afraid that our country – the Republic where Capitalism has reigned all these many years – is being lost to Socialism.  Statements such as those quoted above are easy to find, and they come from both our politicians in Washington DC and the average guy on the street.

In 1966, the German sociologist Helmut Schoeck wrote  Envy: A Theory of Social Behavior.  
He argued that envy is the root cause of socialism and compulsory wealth redistribution.

“You’ve got something I want. 
I can’t have it, so I’m going to destroy what you have. 
I don’t want anyone to have it unless I can have it.”

This is the attitude of the individual who doesn’t want to lift himself up but, instead, wants to pull everyone else down to his level.

The politician who calls for extortionate taxes on the rich or on corporations, even though he knows that the wealth of the rich is re-invested to provide jobs and tools to the less rich, is an example of the politics of envy.
The politician would rather that the economy have low growth or no growth rather than allow the rich person to retain most of the income that is produced by his capital."