Schoeck_2010_EnvyATheoryOfSocialBehaviour.pdf

Murder from envy
8
Crimes of Envy
As we have already observed, one function of private property is to
protect people against the envy and aggression of the physically less well
endowed. For a society in which everyone owned an equal amount of
property, or where property was shared out by the state, would not be an
idyll devoid of envy but a hell in which no one could feel physically
secure. Even in present society there are frequent cases of crimes whose
motive is obviously envy of some physical superiority.
In 1963, after a basketball game in New York City, a drab-looking day
labourer drove his car at the good-looking hero who had won the game
and who was standing on the pavement with his parents and friends. The
murderer, who had no interest whatever in the losing team, declared that
he just could not stand seeing the glamour of that handsome athlete. 1
Arson prompted by envy of more gifted fellow students may end in
murder, as a story which appeared in the New York Times on June 1,
1967, strongly suggests. It may even happen at an elite university, with a
very high academic standard, should it dare to offer an exceptional
opportunity to the favoured few. During 1967 buildings housing Cornell
University students were the victims of three fires, all very similar. In the
worst fire, on April 5, eight students and a professor died in the blaze.
On May 23 a second fIre broke out in a building housing students, and a
third occurred on May 31 in a building occupied by some of the students
evacuated from the house burned on April 5. All three fires involved
I 'Youth Is Accused of Killing City College Star with Car, ' New York Times, December
16,1963.
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