Schoeck_2010_EnvyATheoryOfSocialBehaviour.pdf

406 SOCIAL REVOLUTIONS
better to adhere to the exact definition of terms set out in this book: the
man who is really envious, the pure type of envious man, is usually much
too absorbed by hatred and self-pity to be capable of, or open to,
compensatory, constructive innovation which, were it successful, would
eliminate the cause for his envy. The envious man may wish to promote
certain forms of innovation, such as new taxation, a revolution or
restriction of the free market, which would harm, destroy, impoverish
and cramp those he envies, but only very seldom, and then almost
against his will, will he, as an envious man, carry out any constructive
innovation.
Yet there may be a task for envy which will be meaningful in the sense
of a society's quality; for if, in the absence of social controls, no tradition
were possible, so that any innovation, however frivolous and slapdash,
could be realized, no stable culture could arise. And again, envy of those
who profit by an inefficient system can also act as an incentive to the
envious, who may then actually succeed in introducing a new and better
system. It depends entirely upon the nature of the revolutionaries. The
American colonists were angry and felt something like indignant envy,
on seeing how men in far-away England were benefiting from the tax on
their own achievement. This kind of envy-indignation need not be
destructive.
Envy in the French Revolution
G. Rude has made a careful study of the motives by which the actual
mob, the menu peup/e, were impelled during the French Revolution as
compared with the outraged bourgeoisie. Their discontent was, in fact,
always and literally concerned with their daily bread. We can hardly call
it envy if, out of hunger, someone hits out blindly, or attaches himself to a
revolution he does not really understand. His revolutionary impulse
would immediately die down were it possible to provide and distribute
food, or sell it at economical prices. Rude suggests, for instance, that we
might very well sympathize with the Parisian workers and their readiness
to help the bourgeoisie in destroying the Ancien Regime if, after
reading C.-E. Labrousse's studies, we visualized the daily life of the
lowest classes.
A chronic grain shortage reached its climax during the years