Envy

Thanks for the compliment, Wry; and thanks for the question,Blackhearted Pirate Lee.

I think that envy is not genetic, but I think it is deeply ingrained in human culture/experience and dates back to hundreds of thousands of years of human evolution in a tribal context. In a primitive tribe there were three classes. Two of the classes had only one member. These two classes were leader and shaman. The shaman might have one assistant because the tribe does not want to be without a shaman.

I believe in natural psychic ability in some humans. I believe that we have lost this ability because it is no longer life and death to have it. If a tribe lost a cave and the tribal leader needed to find another one he would go to the shaman to get a general sense of direction. The shaman could sense where to go at least in a general sense. The shaman could also sense perils along the way. People could not fake being a shaman. If you made too many mistakes as a shaman you would get your skull crushed by large rocks.

The vast majority of tribal members were hunters and gatherers. There was really no reward for being very good as a hunter or very good as a gatherer. If you were the best hunter and played a huge role in downing a mammoth then maybe your nuclear family would get a good organ from the mammoth to eat. There was not any lasting rewardf or being good, though.The only way out of the hunter gatherer class, if you were not psychic, would be to defeat the leader.

Females had no chance to be leader. The only chance at upward mobility for a female was to hope you were psychic. The best gatherer did not become leader. The best hunter did not become leader. The best assassin of the existing leader became leader. The leader would have the greatest combination of size, strength,meanness, brutality and enough intelligence to keep an eye on possible rivals. The leader would also have a high sex drive. The sex drive is important because the only perk of being leader is that you could have sex with any unattached female in the group. Probably in some groups the leader would be entitled to have sex with any female in the group. Females would be required to comply with this because it was essential to the structure of the tribe. Without the incentive of sex there would be no takers for the leadership job.

So, by destroying the leader the destroyer gains the perks of the leader. Many tribes apparently believed that eating the brain ofyour enemy gave you power. This was probably just myth. But there is no doubt that killing the leader gave you the power and perks of the leader. So dragging the leader down actually elevated you.

Democratic capitalism flies in the face of tribalism. Democratic capitalism is designed to reward the best hunters and the best gatherers, not with sex but with more food, clothing and shelter. It is also worth noting that if you go to the richest sections of any metropolitan areas you will see the hottest women (so there still maybe some sexual rewards). It does no good to kill them. If you kill a great gatherer it will not improve your gathering skills one iota unless you torture them first to make them tell you the ten best habits of successful gathering. In fact, if you kill the great hunters and gatherers you actually hurt your own prospects to eat well because typically surpluses would be shared. Envy exists because there has been so little time in human history when the person who dragged someone down did not gain the powers of the defeated individual.

Envy will only be eliminated when we re-wire ourselves during many generations to realize that greatness should inspire, be copied, be analyzed but should never be punished. Punishing success hurts everyone and the people who get hurt the most are the weakest (poorest) who rely on surpluses for survival.