Envy: A Theory of Social Behavior (Hardback)

Envy is one of the seven deadly sins but one hardly anyone wants to mention anymore, especially since it is the motive force behind most varieties of the redistributionist state.

Sociologist Helmut Schoeck has turned this insight into a full blown theory of the political culture of envy: he sees the drive to destroy the good as the secret sin of the modern state. He shows that slogans such as fairness and equality are often nothing other than the impulse to crush the advantages and merits of others.

It is no wonder, write Schoeck, that we are all asked to pretend as envy doesn't exist or that it doesn't matter, or, even, that envy is actually a productive and wonderful force in society. Yes, Schoeck shows that many scholars have held that view! There will always be something or someone left to envy, he writes, and so the impulse to level everyone and everything can only end in the total state, and the complete obliteration of civilization itself.

The author was born in Austria in 1922, and eductated at Tuebingen. He immigrated to the US in 1950, and became a friend of Mises's, eventually teaching at Emory University, and finally moving back to Germany and teaching at the University of Mainz.

This wonderful treatise--it is full 450 pages--is a brilliant book and his masterpiece. No study on the subject before or since has come anywhere close to matching its sweep and scope. It combines economic insight with a classical understanding of literature and history to produce a book that illuminates the modern world like few others.