Much of the discourse that appears to be about economic inequality and power is really about zero-sum status games. Most people know that it makes them look bad to complain about someone else's status gained through accomplishments, so they pretend that what they really care about is inequality and power.
I believe you are right otherwise envy simply doesn't make sense.
It makes no sense to vilify the people that add value to our lives.
A reasoned response, a rational response, would be to support and encourage them to add further value.
Why is it then that an innovator, a creative individual, who develops something that wasn’t there before, or perhaps advances a way of doing something better, is not supposed to benefit from it?
Time and again when they bring something of value to us, they scale up that value by employing a team or a work force as a multiplier, adding great value for those employees, feeding a growing supply chain, as well as increasing the value for the rest of us.
Why then, if they dare to take a little of that value for themselves, are they accused of stealing from that work force or from those now benefiting from the value they created?
Where is the reason in saying the value creators should not benefit from their work while the rest of us do?
Where from; the sense of entitlement to whatever value is to be had, but indignation if anything is asked in return?
It is too easy to say: “Well, nothing they did has added value for me. I don’t use their product or their service”.
That may occasionally be true but we live in a complex and highly interactive world.
Quite likely someone whose product or service you do partake of, in turn needs that of the innovator, to provide for you.
Pay the price or not. You have free will and it is your choice. If the value added to your life is worth the price to you – you win.
Where is the harm if the creator of that value is winning too? It is not a zero-sum transaction when value is added.
If the value added is not worth the price to you, leave it alone – you’re no worse off and nothing is gained by denying it to others.
Instead, relish the added value we all in this century enjoy, from the generations of innovative and creative minds that came before.
It is quite obvious, if we look back a hundred, or a few hundred years, that we have gained greatly compared to our ancestors.
For the most part we appreciate those gains, and in our kinder moments maybe even those who bought us that added value.
It should not be so difficult to see that improvements to all our lives continue.
Nor should it be impossible to comprehend that such gains do not happen by chance, but by the efforts, the risks, the failures, the effort and risk again, and again, and eventually the successes of creative and innovative minds.
Individuals who try, and fail, and try again; for whom that value add is not just a product or service but a lifetime’s achievement.
How much further ahead might we be if we supported such individuals instead of taking from them as much as we can before they break?
Such support can only lead over time to further improvements in the lives of all of us.
If that means they're better than me - I'm good with that.
This human does not care one whit about rank. This human cares about real goods and services that he can purchase with his wealth. This human is painfully aware of the flaws and outright fraud in psychology research. How do YOU feel about rank vs real wealth? I reject your conclusions and challenge you to produce convincing evidence that is repeatable and has been repeated ad nauseam.
Another homage on US greedy capitalism. Can you please explain why there are millions of poor people in the USA? Despite having two or three jobs. Should they just be eliminated because of their worthlessness? And - are the United States doing really so well? Looking at the self proclaimed superpower and the state of its super military does not support this theory. And, BTW, hasn't Elon Mask got some lucrative contracts with the government generally considered as evil? According to AI, Musk has got government contracts etc worth 38 billion of real, not paper, money, how many US citizens get the same chance?
Capitalism is like lottery, anybody can win but not everybody and anybody can become billionaire, but not everybody. And that's the problem of the system.
China is proving it has a better system and the US can not compete, so they just try to stymie the rise of a better system, by wars. There is nothing good any more in the USA. So sad
Why are some people poor? I once shared a 2 bedroom apartment with 5 people. I was spending all the money from my entry level job to pay for a college education. That's a great reason to be poor. I know of others who at age 40 often quit entry level jobs and rarely produce much when they are working. It seems reasonable that they are poor.
Status is zero-sum, but politics can convert it into a mechanism for acquiring both rank and wealth without having to earn the wealth and while remaining relatively insulated from negative consequences. That’s one reason political status behaves differently from market status: it is not tied to value creation. In markets, rank follows contribution; in politics, rank can follow coalition dynamics, institutional leverage, or control over resource allocation. When status is decoupled from creation, the evolutionary machinery that detects rank differences treats political gains as zero-sum extractions even when no wealth has been produced or lost. This helps explain why people react so strongly to changes in the fortunes of high-status individuals: the mind interprets rank shifts as redistributions of a communal kill, even when the underlying wealth is created rather than taken.
Very important insights here. We need to quickly begin to "name" a couple things you have articulated - one is the particular "brand" of envy that uses other people's wealth as a morally justified cause against evil (whereas if it's just his neighbor it is clear it is an inferiority complex and simple envy). By grouping wealthy people into an evil category it becomes possible for the envious people to masquerade as moral warriors against something evil and be protected from the candid truth that envy is envy is envy and they've got it. We need a name for that. Once we have a good name we can write more about it and help people see it. They will see it in others first, but eventually we will be able to address it openly. Some conservatives are using "DOGE" concepts in this way. People who profess to support the free market and liberty are disguising their envy by claiming to be going after fraud, abuse and waste when they are simply attacking the wealthy due to envy. This brand of moral self-righteousness hiding simple, age-old envy has a lot of power to harm America and must be called out broadly and quickly. If you could give it a succinct name or term it would be so great!
Great point! Here is how my AI responds to your suggestion…
“The best existing term is ressentiment. It is remarkably close to what the commenter is trying to name.
In Nietzsche, and even more explicitly in Max Scheler, ressentiment is not merely resentment. It is a process in which feelings such as envy, inferiority, impotence, anger, or frustrated desire are converted into moral judgments. Instead of “I envy what you have,” the psychological move becomes “what you have is evil, and therefore my hostility toward you is virtuous.” Scheler specifically connected ressentiment with envy and with the creation of distorted value judgments.
That is almost exactly the phenomenon described in your quote.
I would distinguish several possible names depending on what you want the phrase to do:
Ressentiment — best established intellectual term. “Anti-billionaire ressentiment” would be very precise.
Moralized envy — probably the clearest plain-English term. Envy becomes a moral claim rather than being experienced as envy.
Sanctified envy — more memorable. The envy has been made righteous or holy.
Envy laundering — my favorite coined term for the specific mechanism in your quote. An unattractive personal motive gets “laundered” through a moral narrative and comes out looking virtuous.
Righteous envy — punchy, although slightly ambiguous because it could imply the envy really is righteous.
Virtue-washed envy — contemporary and immediately understandable, though perhaps a little trendy.”
I agree.
Much of the discourse that appears to be about economic inequality and power is really about zero-sum status games. Most people know that it makes them look bad to complain about someone else's status gained through accomplishments, so they pretend that what they really care about is inequality and power.
I believe you are right otherwise envy simply doesn't make sense.
It makes no sense to vilify the people that add value to our lives.
A reasoned response, a rational response, would be to support and encourage them to add further value.
Why is it then that an innovator, a creative individual, who develops something that wasn’t there before, or perhaps advances a way of doing something better, is not supposed to benefit from it?
Time and again when they bring something of value to us, they scale up that value by employing a team or a work force as a multiplier, adding great value for those employees, feeding a growing supply chain, as well as increasing the value for the rest of us.
Why then, if they dare to take a little of that value for themselves, are they accused of stealing from that work force or from those now benefiting from the value they created?
Where is the reason in saying the value creators should not benefit from their work while the rest of us do?
Where from; the sense of entitlement to whatever value is to be had, but indignation if anything is asked in return?
It is too easy to say: “Well, nothing they did has added value for me. I don’t use their product or their service”.
That may occasionally be true but we live in a complex and highly interactive world.
Quite likely someone whose product or service you do partake of, in turn needs that of the innovator, to provide for you.
Pay the price or not. You have free will and it is your choice. If the value added to your life is worth the price to you – you win.
Where is the harm if the creator of that value is winning too? It is not a zero-sum transaction when value is added.
If the value added is not worth the price to you, leave it alone – you’re no worse off and nothing is gained by denying it to others.
Instead, relish the added value we all in this century enjoy, from the generations of innovative and creative minds that came before.
It is quite obvious, if we look back a hundred, or a few hundred years, that we have gained greatly compared to our ancestors.
For the most part we appreciate those gains, and in our kinder moments maybe even those who bought us that added value.
It should not be so difficult to see that improvements to all our lives continue.
Nor should it be impossible to comprehend that such gains do not happen by chance, but by the efforts, the risks, the failures, the effort and risk again, and again, and eventually the successes of creative and innovative minds.
Individuals who try, and fail, and try again; for whom that value add is not just a product or service but a lifetime’s achievement.
How much further ahead might we be if we supported such individuals instead of taking from them as much as we can before they break?
Such support can only lead over time to further improvements in the lives of all of us.
If that means they're better than me - I'm good with that.
Beautifully said Martin. I am copying some of your phrases as they are succinct and useful as we try to articulate this important concept. Thank you.
This human does not care one whit about rank. This human cares about real goods and services that he can purchase with his wealth. This human is painfully aware of the flaws and outright fraud in psychology research. How do YOU feel about rank vs real wealth? I reject your conclusions and challenge you to produce convincing evidence that is repeatable and has been repeated ad nauseam.
Another homage on US greedy capitalism. Can you please explain why there are millions of poor people in the USA? Despite having two or three jobs. Should they just be eliminated because of their worthlessness? And - are the United States doing really so well? Looking at the self proclaimed superpower and the state of its super military does not support this theory. And, BTW, hasn't Elon Mask got some lucrative contracts with the government generally considered as evil? According to AI, Musk has got government contracts etc worth 38 billion of real, not paper, money, how many US citizens get the same chance?
Capitalism is like lottery, anybody can win but not everybody and anybody can become billionaire, but not everybody. And that's the problem of the system.
China is proving it has a better system and the US can not compete, so they just try to stymie the rise of a better system, by wars. There is nothing good any more in the USA. So sad
Why are some people poor? I once shared a 2 bedroom apartment with 5 people. I was spending all the money from my entry level job to pay for a college education. That's a great reason to be poor. I know of others who at age 40 often quit entry level jobs and rarely produce much when they are working. It seems reasonable that they are poor.
Status is zero-sum, but politics can convert it into a mechanism for acquiring both rank and wealth without having to earn the wealth and while remaining relatively insulated from negative consequences. That’s one reason political status behaves differently from market status: it is not tied to value creation. In markets, rank follows contribution; in politics, rank can follow coalition dynamics, institutional leverage, or control over resource allocation. When status is decoupled from creation, the evolutionary machinery that detects rank differences treats political gains as zero-sum extractions even when no wealth has been produced or lost. This helps explain why people react so strongly to changes in the fortunes of high-status individuals: the mind interprets rank shifts as redistributions of a communal kill, even when the underlying wealth is created rather than taken.
Very important insights here. We need to quickly begin to "name" a couple things you have articulated - one is the particular "brand" of envy that uses other people's wealth as a morally justified cause against evil (whereas if it's just his neighbor it is clear it is an inferiority complex and simple envy). By grouping wealthy people into an evil category it becomes possible for the envious people to masquerade as moral warriors against something evil and be protected from the candid truth that envy is envy is envy and they've got it. We need a name for that. Once we have a good name we can write more about it and help people see it. They will see it in others first, but eventually we will be able to address it openly. Some conservatives are using "DOGE" concepts in this way. People who profess to support the free market and liberty are disguising their envy by claiming to be going after fraud, abuse and waste when they are simply attacking the wealthy due to envy. This brand of moral self-righteousness hiding simple, age-old envy has a lot of power to harm America and must be called out broadly and quickly. If you could give it a succinct name or term it would be so great!
Great point! Here is how my AI responds to your suggestion…
“The best existing term is ressentiment. It is remarkably close to what the commenter is trying to name.
In Nietzsche, and even more explicitly in Max Scheler, ressentiment is not merely resentment. It is a process in which feelings such as envy, inferiority, impotence, anger, or frustrated desire are converted into moral judgments. Instead of “I envy what you have,” the psychological move becomes “what you have is evil, and therefore my hostility toward you is virtuous.” Scheler specifically connected ressentiment with envy and with the creation of distorted value judgments.
That is almost exactly the phenomenon described in your quote.
I would distinguish several possible names depending on what you want the phrase to do:
Ressentiment — best established intellectual term. “Anti-billionaire ressentiment” would be very precise.
Moralized envy — probably the clearest plain-English term. Envy becomes a moral claim rather than being experienced as envy.
Sanctified envy — more memorable. The envy has been made righteous or holy.
Envy laundering — my favorite coined term for the specific mechanism in your quote. An unattractive personal motive gets “laundered” through a moral narrative and comes out looking virtuous.
Righteous envy — punchy, although slightly ambiguous because it could imply the envy really is righteous.
Virtue-washed envy — contemporary and immediately understandable, though perhaps a little trendy.”
Thank you Swami! I like Moralized Envy and Sanctified Envy. And Envy Laundering! That's useful as well!