The Green-Eyed Capitalist
By Sam Vaknin
Author of "Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited"

Conservative sociologists self-servingly marvel at the peaceful
proximity of abject poverty and ostentatious affluence in American -
or, for that matter, Western - cities. Devastating riots do erupt,
but these are reactions either to perceived social injustice (Los
Angeles 1965) or to political oppression (Paris 1968). The French
Revolution may have been the last time the urban sans-culotte raised
a fuss against the economically enfranchised.

This pacific co-existence conceals a maelstrom of envy. Behold the
rampant Schadenfreude which accompanied the antitrust case against
the predatory but loaded Microsoft. Observe the glee which engulfed
many destitute countries in the wake of the September 11 atrocities
against America, the epitome of triumphant prosperity. Witness the
post-World.com orgiastic castigation of avaricious CEO's.

Envy - a pathological manifestation of destructive aggressiveness -
is distinct from jealousy.

The New Oxford Dictionary of English defines envy as:

"A feeling of discontented or resentful longing aroused by someone
else's possessions, qualities, or luck ... Mortification and ill-
will occasioned by the contemplation of another's superior
advantages."

Pathological envy - the fourth deadly sin - is engendered by the
realization of some lack, deficiency, or inadequacy in oneself. The
envious begrudge others their success, brilliance, happiness,
beauty, good fortune, or wealth. Envy provokes misery, humiliation,
and impotent rage.

The envious copes with his pernicious emotions in five ways:

1.. They attack the perceived source of frustration in an attempt
to destroy it, or "reduce it" to their "size". Such destructive
impulses often assume the disguise of championing social causes,
fighting injustice, touting reform, or promoting an ideology.

2.. They seek to subsume the object of envy by imitating it. In
extreme cases, they strive to get rich quick through criminal scams,
or corruption. They endeavor to out-smart the system and shortcut
their way to fortune and celebrity.

3.. They resort to self-deprecation. They idealize the successful,
the rich, the mighty, and the lucky and attribute to them super-
human, almost divine, qualities. At the same time, they humble
themselves. Indeed, most of this strain of the envious end up
disenchanted and bitter, driving the objects of their own erstwhile
devotion and adulation to destruction and decrepitude.

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." The literati seek to tear down the market economy
which they feel has so disenfranchised and undervalued them.

Hitler, who fancied himself an artist, labeled the British a "nation
of shopkeepers" in one of his bouts of raging envy. Ralph Reiland,
the Kenneth Simon professor of free enterprise at Robert Morris
University, quotes David Brooks of the "weekly Standard", who
christened this phenomenon "bourgeoisophobia":

"The hatred of the bourgeoisie is the beginning of all virtue' -
wrote Gustav Flaubert. He signed his letters 'Bourgeoisophobus' to
show how much he despised 'stupid grocers and their ilk ... Through
some screw-up in the great scheme of the universe, their narrow-
minded greed had brought them vast wealth, unstoppable power and
growing social prestige."

Reiland also quotes from Ludwig van Mises's "The Anti-Capitalist
Mentality":

"Many people, and especially intellectuals, passionately loathe
capitalism. In a society based on caste and status, the individual
can ascribe adverse fate to conditions beyond his control. In ...
capitalism ... everybody's station in life depends on his doing ...
(what makes a man rich is) not the evaluation of his contribution
from any 'absolute' principle of justice but the evaluation on the
part of his fellow men who exclusively apply the yardstick of their
personal wants, desires and ends ... Everybody knows very well that
there are people like himself who succeeded where he himself failed.
Everybody knows that many of those he envies are self-made men who
started from the same point from which he himself started. Everybody
is aware of his own defeat. In order to console himself and to
restore his self- assertion, such a man is in search of a scapegoat.
He tries to persuade himself that he failed through no fault of his
own. He was too decent to resort to the base tricks to which his
successful rivals owe their ascendancy. The nefarious social order
does not accord the prizes to the most meritorious men; it crowns
the dishonest, unscrupulous scoundrel, the swindler, the exploiter,
the 'rugged individualist'."

In "The Virtue of Prosperity", Dinesh D'Souza accuses prosperity and
capitalism of inspiring vice and temptation. Inevitably, it provokes
envy in the poor and depravity in the rich.

With only a modicum of overstatement, capitalism can be depicted as
the sublimation of jealousy. As opposed to destructive envy -
jealousy induces emulation. Consumers - responsible for two thirds
of America's GDP - ape role models and vie with neighbors,
colleagues, and family members for possessions and the social status
they endow. Productive and constructive competition - among
scientists, innovators, managers, actors, lawyers, politicians, and
the members of just about every other profession - is driven by
jealousy.

The eminent Nobel prize winning British economist and philosopher of
Austrian descent, Friedrich Hayek, suggested in "The Constitution of
Liberty" that innovation and progress in living standards are the
outcomes of class envy. The wealthy are early adopters of expensive
and unproven technologies. The rich finance with their conspicuous
consumption the research and development phase of new products. The
poor, driven by jealousy, imitate them and thus create a mass market
which allows manufacturers to lower prices.

But jealousy is premised on the twin beliefs of equality and a level
playing field. "I am as good, as skilled, and as talented as the
object of my jealousy." - goes the subtext - "Given equal
opportunities, equitable treatment, and a bit of luck, I can
accomplish the same or more."

Jealousy is easily transformed to outrage when its presumptions -
equality, honesty, and fairness - prove wrong. In a paper recently
published by Harvard University's John M. Olin Center for Law and
titled "Executive Compensation in America: Optimal Contracting or
Extraction of Rents?", the authors argue that executive malfeasance
is most effectively regulated by this "outrage constraint":

"Directors (and non-executive directors) would be reluctant to
approve, and executives would be hesitant to seek, compensation
arrangements that might be viewed by observers as outrageous."



Sam Vaknin ( http://samvak.tripod.com ) is the author of Malignant
Self Love - Narcissism Revisited and After the Rain - How the West
Lost the East. He served as a columnist for Global Politician,
Central Europe Review, PopMatters, Bellaonline, and eBookWeb, a
United Press International (UPI) Senior Business Correspondent, and
the editor of mental health and Central East Europe categories in
The Open Directory and Suite101.

Until recently, he served as the Economic Advisor to the Government
of Macedonia.

Visit Sam's Web site at http://samvak.tripod.com