Georg Simmel on envy

In Chapter 4 of his Sociology, which is concerned with conflict, Georg Simmel investigates the phenomenon of envy, which he sees as contained within the concepts of hatred, jealousy and ill-will. Like so many authors, Simmel is immediately confronted by terminological ambiguity:

Finally, there is a fact, apparently of merely individual importance, yet in reality very significant sociologically, which may link extreme violence of antagonistic excitement, to close proximity: jealousy. Popular usage is not unequivocal in regard to this term, often failing to distinguish it from envy.

As we have already seen, Simmel here underrates the precision of the German language (as also of English and French). The big dictionaries, already available in his day, could have given him a clue. Simmel continues:

Both affects are undoubtedly of the greatest importance in the formation of human relations. In both, an asset is involved whose attainment or preservation is impeded by a third party, either truly or symbolically. Where attainment is concerned, we should speak of envy, and where preservation, rather of jealousy; in this the semantic differentiation of the words is in itself, of course, quite meaningless and of importance only for the dis-tinction of the psycho-sociological processes.

Here I would not agree with Simmel unconditionally: the use of the words is not incidental, as we have already shown in Chapter 2. Proverbial lore, as well as the literature of different cultures, has, over the course of centuries, ranged so much precise knowledge under the dis-tinct concepts 'jealousy' and 'envy' that we should retain the existing terminology. On the whole Simmel, too, adheres to tradition:

It is peculiar to the man described as jealous that the subject believes he has a rightful claim to possession, whereas envy is concerned not with the right to, but simply with the desirability of, what is denied; it is also a matter of indifference whether the asset is denied him because a third party owns it, or whether even its loss or renunciation by the latter would fail to procure itforhim.6

Jealousy or envy?

Simmel's definition needs greater precision: the expression 'jealousy' should be restricted to an asset upon which there is a legitimate claim, even if the jealous man is subjectively mistaken about his possible loss of that asset. A child in a family undoubtedly has a true a priori claim to its parents' kindness, help and love, yet it may be tormented by jealousy of its siblings if it only believes it isn't getting enough. Conversely, the husband whose wife is estranged from him has a right to claim her affections even though, seen objectively, her alienation is genuine.
Simmel's final observation is wholly correct, namely, that the envious man, in certain circumstances, does not even want to have the coveted asset, nor could he enjoy it, but would find it unbearable that another should do so. He becomes ill with annoyance over someone else's private yacht although he has never wished to board a ship in his life.
Simmel clarifies this further:

Jealousy ... is determined in its inner direction and tone by the fact that a possession is withheld from us because it is held by another, and that were this to cease, it would at once become ours: the feelings of the envious man turn rather upon the possession, those of the jealous man upon the pos-sessor. It is possible to envy a man's fame without oneself having any pretensions to fame; but one is jealous of him if one believes that one is equally or more deserving of it. What embitters and corrodes the jealous man is a kind of emotional fiction-however unjustified and senseless-that the other has, so to speak, taken the fame away from him. 7 To continue with the example of fame, there is a further distinction to be made: if there is only one foremost literary prize and one poet has missed getting it, he may be jealous of the prize-winner; but the chemist who, contrary to his expectations, has not received the Nobel Prize for his discovery can only envy his colleague the physicist who does get it.

In other words, in the case of jealousy there must be real competition, but as soon as parallel attainment of the coveted asset is or could have been factually possible, envy alone is involved.
Finally, Simmel says of jealousy that it is 'a feeling so specific in degree and kind that, having arisen as the result of some exceptional emotional combination, it aggravates the situation which gave rise to it. ' This observation is very important. But it is also true of envy. For the envious man, too, by use of his imagination will often aggravate a real situation to such an extent that he never lacks cause for envy.

Begrudging others their assets Simmel arrives at an interesting clarification of terms, distinguishing him from nearly all other writers on the subject, in his description of ill-will, of begrudging, which have always been central aspects of envy.

Approximately halfway between the clearly defined phenomena of envy and jealousy there is a third, belonging to the same scale, which might be termed begrudging: the envious desire for an object, not because it is of itself especially desirable to the subject, but only because others possess it.

This emotional reaction develops two extreme forms which mutate into the negation of the subject's own possessions. On the one hand there is the passionate form of begrudging which prefers to renounce the object itself, would indeed rather see it destroyed than allow another to have it; on the other, there is complete personal indifference or aversion to the object, and yet utter horror at the thought that someone else possesses it. Such forms of begrudging permeate human relations in every degree and variation. That great problematical area where human relations to things turn into cause and effect of their personal interrelations is largely covered by this type of affect. 8

These few sentences of Simmel's contain an observation of great importance. He does not give specific examples, yet what he has indicated here is the psycho-social dynamic, the source of numerous socially or culturally derived regulations usually known as 'sumptuary laws. '

6 G. Simmel, Soziologie. Untersuchungen aber die Formen der Vergesellschaftung, Munich and Leipzig, 2nd ed., 1922, p. 210.
7 Op. cit., pp. 210-11.
8 Op. cit., p. 211.

from Helmut Schoeck  - Envy: A Theory of Social Behaviour