It is impossible to view any political system or ideology clearly without taking into consideration the morality that underpins it.
Morality develops out of a group's emotional responses to various phenomena. In a society where wife-swapping is tribal custom of long standing, the Commandment "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife" makes no sense because wife-swapping arouses no negative emotions. Likewise to an atheistic society, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" is, for the same reason, an irrelevancy, and to a pan-theistic society, it is merely a jealously dyspeptic non sequitur. Thus, we might say that because morality is inexorably linked to emotions (it might even be argued to be the product of certain emotions), if we are going to assess an ideology, we are obliged to do so in terms of the emotions, negative or positive, that underpin it.
Christianity (regardless of how many perverse variants it has spawned over the centuries) is ultimately based on the principle of agape (brotherly love), in other words, the positive emotions that involve sharing with others and caring for them, even sacrificing things of value to oneself for the good of others. However, socialism, which at first glance seems to be a secular version of the same philosophy, is not motivated so much by love as by envy, and therein lies its basic flaw.
In a society in which "sharing" means forced redistribution of wealth earned by fair means1 , where "equal opportunity for all" implies holding back the talented, where "democracy" means that all power is held by a majority-elected political elite, and "freedom of speech" means that information is freely distributed, but only after having been selectively ground through the mill of majority consensus; a society in which "solidarity" means using taxes to bribe key groups to vote for the ruling party, in which citizens' property or income can be confiscated by the State for whatever reason at any time, in which "family politics" means eliminating, by political fiat, certain options that might otherwise be open to families-in terms of the number of children they want, the conditions under which the children will be brought up and by whom, and what they will be raised to believe-in such a society, envy is the motivator, the ultimate determiner of the direction in which its citizens' lives will be steered.
Of envy as a political motivator, D.H. Lawrence, whose roots were in the working class, had this to say in his Apocalypse:
"By the time of Jesus, all the lowest classes and mediocre people had realised that never would they get a chance to be kings, never would they go in chariots, never would they drink wine from gold vessels. Very well then-they would have their revenge by destroying it all. 'Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils' -how one hears the envy, the endless envy screeching through this song of triumph!"
Envy makes no excuses for itself. Where it is felt, anything from a dirty trick to vastly evil schemes2 can be implemented to secure its objectives; anything that will serve its purpose, regardless of how unfair or downright despicable, is considered justifiable. It cancels out all perceptions of right and wrong, and renders null and void any notions of fair-mindedness or decency3.
Socialism is in many ways an elaborate scheme for condoning and promoting officially sanctioned envy, which its rulers see as the primus motor for propelling the masses in the "right" direction. The good that it may bring to a group or a nation-in the form of universal literacy and suffrage, blanket health care, a better standard of living for all, etc.-is always soured by the underlying blight of envy, and where there is envy, there is greed. But socialism has its own brand of greed, one based on what is publicly excused as "being for the common good".
In the late forties, Dr. Vannevar Bush, a scientist and head of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, told MIT students in a graduation address that:
Creativity in its positive sense is a dynamic force that no society can be without and survive. But how can creativity find encouragement in a society where envy not is only rife but enthusiastically supported by the official rhetoric, so that only people who have unusually specialised gifts, such as sports stars and opera singers, are allowed to excel? For example, among schoolchildren in Sweden, merit in sports is rewarded and applauded, whereas scholastic merit is looked upon with a grudging eye, not to say outright mistrust. In fact, giving children different marks for different performance in school is generally not done in Sweden (except at the few private schools) because it is considered unfair and damaging to the collective, as it tends to favour children whose families not only own and use books, but set-as a matter of course-a high price on scholastic achievement and encourage it in their offspring. In Sweden, this is considered particularly reactionary and "undemocratic", a throwback to the days of the bourgeoisie's dominance in society, and reason enough in itself for class hatred. Moreover, the intellectual freedom and curiosity that characterises the bourgeois intellectual is a naked abomination to the socialist, who-correctly!-perceives it as a threat to his own ideological orthodoxy and intellectual rigidity. But with this mindset, how does Sweden expect to breed the new L.M. Ericssons, the new John Erikssons, the new de Lavals and Nobels? To the socialist mind, genius is anathema simply because it can never really be fully incorporated into, or forced to exclusively serve, the collective-an entity that is, by socialist definition, the measure of all rectitude.
Socialism, spurred on by envy, is tireless in its pursuit and encouragement of mediocrity. Somehow, dimly aware of how repellent this would be if its long-term implications were fully understood by the common man, socialism tends to label every expression of its worship of mediocrity with one or another euphemism designed to make it more palatable: "equality", "democracy", "solidarity"-ennobling concepts in themselves-have all been thoroughly debased by being pressed into such demeaning service for so long. In fact, in Sweden, these words mean nothing any longer, except as they are defined by the socialists. And it is no accident that these concepts, which only have meaning when they are reflected in the light of man's highest ideals, become grotesque counterfeits when seen darkly through envy's warped glass.
Given its true voice, envy expresses itself in no uncertain terms:
Can an ideology founded on and perpetuated by envy continue to hold the Swedish society in its thrall? Probably not much longer. The pressures exerted by globalisation and the information explosion will most likely make Sweden's old-style, home-grown, welfare-state socialism as passé as the hoop-skirt in a few more years. But, as we have seen since the fall of the Soviet Union, when it is upheld and revered as the code of highest morality for a long time, envy has a pernicious, debilitating effect on all the civilising virtues. It undermines honesty, openness, generosity, courtesy, self-respect, courage, tolerance, self-sacrifice, unselfishness, fair play and-worst of all-respect for the truth. And, as in the Soviet or Yugoslavia, when a system built on envy falls apart, all that is left is the smoking ruins of the foundations: that is, envy in its most uncontrolled, squalid, brutal and virulent form-dog-eat-dog, and every man for himself. I fear that this is where Sweden is headed (even though, of course, there won't be bloodshed in the streets, this being Sweden!), unless some fortuitous development guides it back from the brink. And something tells me that socialism, with envy as its true moral compass, will not provide the saving grace that Sweden needs.
In a world that holds so much promise, do we really have time for envy? Or socialism, for that matter?
Susanne Heine
1 According to socialism, "wealth" cannot be "earned" by "fair means" (hard work, thrift and perseverance), but only by exploitation and theft of labour.
"It is very nice, if you are poor and not humble-and the poor may be obsequious, but they are almost never truly humble in the Christian sense-to bring your grand enemies down to utter destruction and discomfiture, while you yourself rise up to grandeur.
Of all the negative emotions (including anger, guilt, fear, and rage), envy-and its ugly twin, jealousy-is the only one that can never claim to be a justifiable reaction, nor can it have a positive function, as many of the other negative emotions often do. We can feel anger at seeing injustice; we can feel guilt if we have done wrong; we can feel fear if we are threatened, and rage if we are in some way violated. All these reactions are normal, and can, under certain circumstances, be channelled in ways that may have a positive outcome. Envy stands apart from them, however, in that it is altogether self-destructive, it cannot be turned around to serve a positive purpose, and ultimately it can do only harm to both the one who is motivated by it, and the one who is the object of it (plus any innocent bystanders who happen to be in the way). Furthermore, it encourages brooding, idleness and counter-productivity. No wonder, then, that it is listed among the Seven Deadly Sins.
"…a people bent on a soft security, surrendering their birthright of individual self-reliance for favours, voting themselves into Eden from a supposedly inexhaustible public purse, supporting everyone by soaking a fast-disappearing rich, scrambling for subsidies, learning the art of political log-rolling and forgetting the rugged virtues of the pioneer, will not measure up to [the] competition…"
Albeit Dr. Bush was speaking to an exclusively American group, to which the phrase "rugged virtues of the pioneer" still had, at that time, special significance; nevertheless, in the same speech he mentioned that a nation could not compete with dictatorships if it became
"…a wishy-washy imitation of totalitarianism, where every man's hand is held out for pabulum, and…creativeness has given place to the patronising favour of swollen bureaucracy."
Here again, of course, Dr. Bush was directing his warning at America. However, the greed that characterises socialist societies does indeed consist, as he stated, of people having no higher goal than creating "security" for themselves, currying political favour among the political elite, and "voting themselves into Eden from a supposedly inexhaustible public purse". The first victim of this kind of greed is creativity, which under socialism is not allowed to reap any special benefits by dint of innovation and hard work. But there are many kinds of creativity, and if the kind that might blossom into a flower is stifled, the other kind, the weed, will readily find nourishment and spread its roots throughout society, inventing devious, underhanded ways of accumulating lavish benefits unto itself. (The Soviet and post-Soviet nomenclatura were, and are, fabulously creative in this sense, feathering their own nests at the public expense, and astonishing the world with their arrogance, rapacity and singular contempt for the commonweal.)
"In our struggle for power, we must not be encumbered by any principles. We should be prepared to use any tricks, unlawful methods and lies that are necessary. If, for the sake of communism, we are forced to annihilate nine-tenths of the population, we must not falter in making this sacrifice."
How much of agape do we hear in Lenin's words? How much of equality, democracy and solidarity? As I said before, envy make no excuses for itself. It needs none, especially when it feels itself justified by class hatred.
2 Hitler's envy-driven annilhilation of the Jews, Stalin's of the kulaks, Pol Pot's of the intellectualls, all come to mind.
3 "Fair-mindedness" and "decency" are generally regarded in socialist rhetoric as non-objective bourgeois claptrap.Also by Susanne M.J. Heine:
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