Schoeck_2010_EnvyATheoryOfSocialBehaviour.pdf

THE ENVIOUS MAN AS INFORMER 303
involved-inequalities relating to themselves which must be extirpated
before those classes and individuals will again conform to the norms of
the society.
The envious man as informer
A tolerable and reasonable society will, rather, be that in which as few
people as possible are preoccupied with their feelings of envy and
resentment, and in which those few must keep such feelings to themselves,
because open envy would fail to earn them sympathy, either
among their fellow men or before the law. It will be a society which, on
principle, ignores the informer whose envy is plain for all to see, even if
this means that from time to time a tax-dodger slips through the net.
Here, however, it is essential to discuss certain special cases, in order
to meet objections and obviate misunderstandings.
1. As Svend Ranulf has shown, effective criminal justice is based on
ubiquitous and latent mutual envy, so that crimes are denounced even
when the denouncer is totally unconnected with either deed or victim,
and has himself suffered no damage. However, it is one thing to offer a
reward for the arrest and conviction of a bank robber or murderer, and
even perhaps to use evidence given by an envious accomplice (which is
known to have happened, as when a man failed to get his share of the
newspaper headlines after a joint crime), and quite another thing if the
state appeals, in effect, to all envious people, with the offer of a reward,
to denounce anyone who breaks some law, in itself so niggling and
absurd that it would be inoperative without the help of informers.
Murder and serious sexual crimes are not normal events in social life.
Not only are they rare, but they do not, as a rule, need to be combated
with the help of the institutionalized informer. It is dubious enough when
the police systematically incite less successful (Le., older) prostitutes to
inform against more successful ones, in order to solve a problem which
they were at a loss to solve in any other way. It is even more dubious
when, as in the United States, the Internal Revenue Office (not the local
city or state tax office) unblushingly and regularly emits an appeal to all
envious people to denounce any tax-dodger, and then rewards them for
doing so. After all, however much one may wish to destroy or embarrass
a man, one cannot simply accuse him of murder; there are just not
enough unexplained murders. But if the state has recourse to the envious