The Politics of Envy and Other Pernicious Bullshit
Conservatives have a stock response to any suggestion that the rich ought to pay more taxes. “The politics of envy,” they’ll say with a sad shake of the head and a wry smile, a pantomime of faux disappointment. It’s an insidious accusation that plants a seed of doubt even as it’s denied. We all need money and we all want security, but wanting the rich to pay their way is a moral imperative, motivated not by envy but by a desire for social justice.
The very premise shows a fundamental misunderstanding of what envy actually is. Envy is based on comparison, and we primarily compare ourselves to our peers. I may envy my Facebook friends but I don’t envy Mark Zuckerberg. Envy is based on what might have been and what could yet be, and I could never do what he’s done.
I believe this core misconception arises because envy is about looking up the ladder to the next rung, and our wealthy ruling class are looking up at the super-rich. They ascribe their own envy as the motivation behind calls of the citizenry to curb the excesses of the wealthy. For example, the average citizen sees inherited non-dom status (under which British citizens resident in Britain can claim to be non-domiciled for tax purposes) as an absurd loophole that ought to be abolished; the wealthy defend it because it may one day be of use to them. For the average citizen the super-rich simply exist in another world. We are too far removed to be envious. We cannot aspire to become an oligarch.
Aspiration is not a cultural constant. The USA is the nadir of individualism, where socialism is traditionally toxic (although it has been rehabilitated somewhat under Bernie Sanders). Blue collar workers will vote against their own self-interest for policies that favour the rich, because they hope that one day they too may be rich. And yet the American Dream is actually more achievable in Denmark, where social mobility is far greater. Scandinavia is influenced by the Law of Jante, a concept that values the collective and stigmatises individual success.
I think both of these are extremes, and while I find a lot to admire in the Nordic model, I don’t think tall poppies should be cut down as a matter of principle. People are different and should be allowed to exploit their talents. But if a poppy is growing so large that its blood-red petals are cutting off light to the poppies below, and its grasping roots are leeching the nutrients on which all depend, then it’s time to get out the shears.
British society is structured to create these monstrous poppies. A hugely disproportionate number of people in elite careers went to private schools, and graduates increasingly find themselves obliged to accept unpaid internships to get their foot in the door at companies. Both are simply not viable without wealthy parents. The Conservative assumption is that we have a meritocracy, that the way to level things is for those at the bottom to strive upwards rather than try to pull others down. This ignores the reality of our social structure. And it’s wilful ignorance, for personal gain. A true meritocracy would have a 100% inheritance tax, yet the Conservative government has cut it, a move that benefits only the wealthy and their children. So much for equality of opportunity.
The goal of the modern Conservative project is to increase inequality, and the deployment of the politics of envy is a distracting tactic to put dissenters on the defensive and stifle debate.
The most galling, hypocritical thing of all is that it’s Conservatives themselves who are the greatest practitioners of the politics of envy. A prime example was on display during last year’s London’s Tube strike. The response of the right-wing propaganda press was to fixate on the potential earnings of the strikers rather than the reasons behind the dispute. Tube drivers earn more than you! You don’t have the right to strike, why should they? Social media buzzed with resentment at those greedy train drivers, plunging London into chaos so that they could have a day off to swim in their Scrooge McDuck-style pools of money.
It was a classic divide and rule tactical gambit, and we fell for it. We grab the feet of those on the rung above while those at the top of the ladder look down and laugh at us, fighting over their scraps. This is the true politics of envy — a weapon to keep us in our place.
