4. 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.
5. 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.
Pages:
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156