Envy and the Search for Fairness in our Economic Relationships: An Interview with Victor Claar

Throughout this week and next, I will be featuring some interviews that I conducted with various Acton University scholars on topics related to economics, ethics, and theology.

First let’s be clearer about what envy is. Saint Thomas Aquinas defines envy simply as sadness at the good of another. Thus envy is a thoroughly personal sin: no one need ever suspect he or she is the object of envy. And unlike the other six deadly sins, envy is the one that is never fun at all—even fleetingly.

Church teaching is clear: envy is a deadly sin. Envy is thought to be so thoroughly corrosive to the human person that once it gains a foothold it can put in peril a person’s prospect of eternal life. But envy corrodes our relationships with each other, too. Anytime anyone enjoys an advantage over me in anything, for any reason, the temptation to commit the sin of envy is present. And sociologists tell us that we can feel envy most intensely for those with whom we most closely identify: our next-door neighbor with a newer car, a slightly larger house, or a more attractive spouse; or a coworker who receives a raise or promotion when we do not.

It follows that occasions for envy will arise in any meritocracy, including market systems. Market outcomes are almost never equal because rewards in markets accrue to those with something valuable to contribute to the well-being of others. Market outcomes are always different because each of us is different: we have different skills, talents, family backgrounds, appetites for risk, patience, work ethics, and entrepreneurial finesse. And sometimes rewards are different due to just plain old luck.

Now I am certainly no apologist for envy—far from it. Envy is a deadly sin we need to talk about more, rather than continue to deal with in secret misery. We need to confess it. Yet I imagine that for some of us envy can be a motivator to do better; that is envy at its best, if one can even say such a thing. Most of the time, though, envy is a leveler—and as Dorothy Sayers has put it, envy will level things down if it cannot level them up. That is, I may very well seek to take down a notch those doing better than I in order to make my envious feelings go away.

So I do think envy is thoroughly corrosive: corrosive to the human person and the soul, and corrosive also to our relationships with each other. Either others’ success makes us feel miserable, or worse still it leads us to feelings of outright malevolence.

And envy is certainly not required to make markets thrive. But is it an inevitable, ongoing challenge given that market outcomes are not equal outcomes.