Schoeck_2010_EnvyATheoryOfSocialBehaviour.pdf

FREEDOM AND EQUALITY 283
demanded, and almost never found in the social relationships of human
beings. Equity, on the other hand, is everywhere and always insisted upon.
And equity is frequently, if not invariably, achieved. 'Justness,' as the term
will be here used, refers to the achievement of maintenance of equity, which
is always relative rather than absolute, and not to that which is simply legal.
LaPiere believes that, in the long run, most legislative acts, legal
decisions, etc. tend to a state of equity, although at any given moment
there may be no relation between the sense of equity and the law. II
Now and again, although not nearly often enough, ecclesiastical
pronouncements reveal the understanding that demands for equality and
social justice can easily turn into envious demands. Thus, about fifteen
years ago, a group of American Protestant churches declared: 'Pronounced
contrasts between rich and poor in our society tend to destroy
comradeship, to undermine equality of opportunity and to threaten the
political institutions of a society conscious of its responsibility. '
These elastic expressions do not admit of an exact interpretation. The
following sentence, however, was significant:
'Those who take advantage of such inequalities are all too liable to
self-deceit if they try to justify their privileges, just as others may deceive
themselves in refusing to recognize as envy their own feelings towards
those who earn more or have better luck. '
To solve this dilemma, the resolution calls for undefined measures
against any inequality held to be inimical to 'the broad concept of justice
and the well-being of society. ' But there is no suggestion as to how such
conceptions can be formed into a 'just' financial and social policy. 12
Freedom and equality
G. Simmel had earlier remarked on the necessary instability of the
relationship between freedom and equality:
Where general freedom reigns, so does the same measure of equality: for
the former merely postulates the non-existence of authority .... Equality,
however, which thus appears as ... the first consequence of freedom, is in
11 R. T. LaPiere, A Theory of Social Control, New York, 1954, pp. 199 f.
12 Resolution taken by the General Board of the National Council of the Churches of
Christ in the U.S.A., September 15,1954.