I have written before about the economics of envy. In non-economics jargon, for envious people if someone else has more stuff, the envious people feel worse off, even if they have more stuff too.... especially if someone else has a lot more stuff.*
As Todd Zywicki recently wrote in a comment on Facebook,
Didn't envy used to be considered a sin? Rename it "inequality" and it is apparently a perfectly legitimate thing to talk about publicly. Praiseworthy even in some quarters. There's another difference between today and a century ago.
Envy and comparisons are not new, but something seems different to me. It is now considered politically and socially acceptable to say, "You have it; I want it. Or at the very least I want to tell you what to do with it.... and I'm going to use the force of gubmnt to make you give up a bunch of what you have."
Todd's remark was in reaction to this post by former student, David Henderson, in which about 10% or so of his audience said they would rather be wealthy in comparison with their peers, than be better off than that in any other sense but worse off relative to their peers. Talk about invidious comparisons!
Some people have called this "The Jones Effect" -- people comparing themselves to others. Some economists, following Veblen, refer to conspicuous consumption as a part of these invidious comparisons.
Also see this lengthy post about inequality by Scott Sumner.