Schoeck_2010_EnvyATheoryOfSocialBehaviour.pdf

INSTITUTIONALIZED ENVY 59
The social sciences have put forward numerous theories on the assumption
that the normal man seeks a maximum in production and in
property. All men today, including those of the so-called developing
countries, ostensibly desire the greatest possible progress. These theories,
however, overlook the fact that in a great many situations the
object of human activity is a diminution; that regularly recurring modes
of human behaviour have as their object the lessening of assets, not just
their replacement by other assets. Everyone who has attempted to
describe envy has pointed out the purely negative character of the
phenomenon. No one is to have anything and no one is to enjoy himself.
A tribe of North American Pueblo Indians showed the beginnings of
division of labour. The various magic and cult tasks such as rain-making,
fertility magic, exorcism of witches, etc., were delegated to certain
'societies' in the pueblo. At times, however, the other villagers imagined
that the magic powers of these 'specialists' were chiefly used for such
people's personal gain. Steps were taken, therefore, to liquidate them,
and those individuals who in any way seemed better off were 'brought
into line' by the destruction of their property or, in slighter cases, by
official warnings.
How little mutual envy, in a relatively simple society, depends upon
objectively ascertainable differences in the standard of living of its
members is apparent from a study of personal relations in a Jamaican
village, carried out between 1950 and 1951. This mountain village is
inhabited by 277 English-speaking Negroes. The descendants of former
slaves, they are now independent, competitively minded peasants who
take their various products to market. The accumulation of money and
land is among their principal motives. About 80 per cent of the inhabitants
earn a tolerable livelihood, and only 3 per cent of the adults are in
need of assistance. Yet we read in the study: 'No matter how "indepen-
earlier by J. Gillin, pp. 116, 114, 124, 122. In that Guatemalan society there is a
diseased condition called envidia, literally envy, which these people believe is caused
in the victim by the magic of an envious man.-C. J. Erasmus (Man Takes Control,
Cultural Development and American Aid, Minneapolis, 1961, p. 80) speaks of an
'envy pattern' which sometimes prevents more successful peasants in Haiti from
introducing up-to-date agricultural methods.-S. Thx (,Changing Consumption in
Indian Guatemala,' Economic Development and Culture Change, Vol. S, Chicago,
1957,pp. 151, 155).