The-Conquest-of-Happiness-by-Bertrand-Russell

that the wise ruler in the peacock kingdom would
seek out the humble bird with only a few draggled
tail feathers. Having got this principle accepted, he
would get all the finest birds put to death, and in
the end a really splendid tail will become only a
dim memory of the past. Such is the victory of envy
masquerading as morality. But where every
peacock thinks himself more splendid than any of
the others, there is no need for all this repression.
Each peacock expects to win the first prize in the
competition, and each, because he values his own
peahen, believes that he has done so.
Envy is, of course, closely connected with
competition. We do not envy a good fortune which
we conceive as quite hopelessly out of our reach.
In an age when the social hierarchy is fixed, the
lowest classes do not envy the upper classes so
long as the division between rich and poor is
thought to be ordained by God. Beggars do not
envy millionaires, though of course they will envy
other beggars who are more successful. The
instability of social status in the modern world,