Schoeck_2010_EnvyATheoryOfSocialBehaviour.pdf

'SOCIAL JUSTICE'-PRIVATE PATIENTS BUT NO PRIVATE SCHOOLS 293
pointed out, without revolution, but none the less in deference to class
pressure. This is held to be one of the greatest achievements of British
institutions, at least on the assumption that a halt will be called at some
point. But it is a question whether, if the 'poor' covet the standard of life of
the wealthier, they will ever be satisfied short of complete equality, or what
may, in material terms, pass for it. In many countries, and in Britain, the
manual worker may earn more than the clerk; why not more than the
brain-worker? Envy does not depend upon any particular scale of magnitudes,
but simply on difference. It is possible to envy a man because he
earns £10 a year more than oneself; it is indeed possible to envy him for
many things other than income. 22
It is possible, for instance-and this especially in Britain-to envy a
man's diction, his way of speech, partly derived from the particular
school he went to, which also affords him social contacts that can help
him along in his life and career. Hence it was completely logical for
left-wing intellectuals in the fifties to attack the more exclusive private
schools. In 1953 Barbara Wootton thus took exception to the fact that
while the middle and upper classes made use of the National Health
Service-which in itself was desirable, since their demands increased its
efficiency-they took much less advantage of free education. From this
she went on to make a radical claim:
In the health service, therefore, we can afford to disregard the fringe of
legitimate private enterprise .... But in education things are different.
There we have to face the fact that we may never see real equality, until
private enterprise schools are virtually prohibited. Not even the broadest
education ladder will meet the case, if express lifts are available for a
privileged minority. 23
Wootton, and many others who hold the same view, ascribe far too
great an influence to school. Even if everybody had to go to the same
kind of mediocre school-because all the young in a nation could never
go to schools of 'equal distinction' -there would always be those who, as
22 R. Lewis and A. Maude, The English Middle Classes, New York, 1950, 1st ed.
London, 1949, pp. 260 f.
23 Barbara Wootton, 'The Labour Party and Social Services,' Political Quarterly,
Vol. 24,1953, p. 67.