Schoeck_2010_EnvyATheoryOfSocialBehaviour.pdf

390 ENVY AS TAX COLLECTOR
lack but by what others have .... If this is what is primarily involved, the
remedy, however impractical, would seem to be one suggested by Aristotle,
that it is the desires of men and not their possessions that need to be
equalized. Nor is there much basis for optimism about the impact on envy
of the redistribution of material goods. Every experience seems to confirm
the dismal hypothesis that envy will find other, and possibly less attractive,
places in which to take root. 3
How little punitive taxation has to do with social progress, or indeed
with anything modern, representing rather a direct regression, very
common in present-day politics, to the motivational state of undeveloped
primitive peoples, becomes apparent from a consideration of some of the
latter's customs which usually affect those who have been favoured by
fate, or who are a little more prosperous. For it can then be seen that envy
succeeds in becoming an institution, regardless of what is involved,
whether this be a million dollars, a pound, a mark or just a dozen mussel
shells. '
Ethnological data towards an understanding of the motive of
extreme progression
One of envy's most remarkable institutions, and one which bears a great
resemblance to the 'social justice' emotional complex today, is the muru
attack among the New Zealand Maori. Among the original New Zealanders
none were either very rich or very poor. Material equality
extended to the chiefs, who, while enjoying financial advantages, were
also subjected to perpetual expenditure, such as obligatory hospitality,
which made the accumulation of riches extremely difficult.
The Maori word muru literally means to plunder, more specifically, to
plunder the property of those who have somehow transgressed in the
eyes of the community. This might be seen as unobjectionable in a
3 W j. Blum and H. Kalven, Jr., The Uneasy Case for Progressive Taxation, Chicago,
1953, pp. 74 ff. C. Fohl, 'Kritik der progressiven Einkommensbesteuerung,' Finanzarchiv,
New Series, Vol. 14, 1953, pp. 88 ff. The impossibility of determining a
'socially just' progressive tax is also demonstrated by Kurt Schmidt, Die Steuerprogression,
Tiibingen, 1960, pp. 75 f. His bibliography gives other works on this
question.