The Freeman 1972 - The Ludwig von Mises Institute

ONAPPEASINGHENRY HAZLITTANY ATTEMPT to equalize wealthor income by forced redistributionmust only tend to destroy wealthand income. Historically the bestthe would-be equalizers have eversucceeded in doing is to equalizedownward. This has even beencaustically described as their intention."Your levellers," saidSamuel Johnson in the mideighteenthcentury,. "wish to leveldown as far as themselves; butthey cannot bear levelling up tothemselves." And in our own daywe find even an eminent liberallike the late Mr. Justice Holmeswriting: "I have no respect forthe passion for equality, whichseems to me merely idealizingenvy."!Henry Hazlitt is well known to FREEMANreaders as author, columnist, editor, lecturer,and practitioner of freedom. This article willappear as a chapter in a forthcoming book,The Conquest of Poverty, to be published byArlington House.At least a handful of writershave begun to recognize explicitlythe all-pervasive role played byenvy or the fear of envy in lifeand in contemporary politicalthought. In 1966, Helmut Schoeck,professor of sociology at the Universityof Mainz, devoted. a penetratingbook to the subject. 2There can be little doubt thatmany egalitarians are motivated atleast partly by envy, while stillothers are motivated, not so muchby any envy of their own, as bythe fear of it in others, and thewish to appease or satisfy it.But the latter effort is bound to1 The Correspondence of Mr. JusticeHolmes and Harold J. Laski Cede M. DeWolfe Howe, 2 vol. Cambridge, Mass.,1953). From Holmes to Laski, May 12,1927, p. 942.2 Helmut Schoeck, Envy (Englishtranslation, Harcourt, Brace & World,1969) .142