Is Leftism the politics of envy?

Because there are so many rich Leftists, I have long argued (see the sidebar here) that material envy is not now, if it ever was, the driver of Leftism.  Even Marx, Engels and the Russian Bolsheviks were middle class rather than working class.  They were not generally poor.  I have argued that hate of the world about them and the people in it are  the key factors behind Leftism.  And the people Leftists hate most are those who cheerfully get on with life, as conservatives do.  Much more here.

So it is interesting that an academic journal article has recently emerged that also discounts the role of envy.  I reproduce the journal abstract below.

It should be noted however that the sampling underlying the article is fairly ludicrous. Sophisticated internet users do not represent the population at large.  And the over-representation of Democrat voters in the sample confirms that.

Additionally, the possibility of getting honest answers about political questions from Leftists has to be discounted.  They know how dismal is their internal world so tend to misrepresent it. Pol Pot tells you how Leftists really think.  So the article is a straw in the wind rather than anything conclusive.

Envy, politics, and age

By Christine R. Harris and Nicole E. Henniger

In the last 5 years, the phrase “politics of envy” has appeared more than 621 times in English-language newspapers, generally in opinion essays contending that political liberalism reflects and exploits feelings of envy. Oddly, this assertion has not been tested empirically. We did so with a large adult sample (n = 357). Participants completed a Dispositional Envy Scale and questions about political ideology, socioeconomic status, and age. Envy and age were moderately correlated; younger people reported greater envy. Political ideology and envy were weakly correlated; however, this relationship was not significant when controlling for age.

SOURCE

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Liberals really do feel that way



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Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).