[petemill]

People will lose ability to be happy for other people's "success" when there's no hope they can achieve it. Likely it's not a signal of just being rich but instead a signal of rich vs poor. When there's a disappearing middle and it's just a wide gap between rich and poor then yes I can see why "rich" is a negative signal.

[rsj_hn]

In other words, envy that someone else has something you want. That's all that's going on.

Envy is hardwired into our ape-brains. Tests show chimpazees get resentful and angry when a neighboring chimpanzee is given a better treat than what they were given (say a grape versus a cucumber). They will shriek and throw their treat away and start jumping up and down. This is modern journalism.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KSryJXDpZo

But that type of ape-morality can't support civilization, which requires large complex organizations and hirearchies. In those hirearchies, you have enormous inequality. The bigger the hierarchy, the greater the inequality. Moreover the gains in any effort are primarily driven by a small productive core. 80% of gains are provided by 20% of people. 80% of those gains are provided by 20% of those people. etc. Advancement and civilization was only possible when we obtained social technology to short-circuit the ape brain, most often religion. With religion, we are taught that the future (or past) life balances out the present life, so there are no real inequalities. We are taught to respect hierarchy and authority, be thankful for what we have, and to pray for the king. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's. Then civilization can develop.

But there is always that animal-morality lurking in the background, waiting to break out in people getting angry and rioting that someone else has something they want, and these outbreaks of weaponized envy have been plaguing the post-Christian west with increasing severity, always leading to the same thing, namely increasing misery for all. It doesn't matter whether it's California cancelling gifted programs because some are learning more than others, or calls for wealth taxes because some are earning more than others, or the general moaning about how unfair everything is, and why can't we build a utopian civilization without hirearchy.

[pydry]

Or Japan stripping its oligarchs of their wealth (partly at America's insistence) leading to a post-war boom like no other.

Or, if it comes to that, top American tax rates of 98% that ceilinged income, presaging the strongest economic growth the country has ever experienced and the growth of the middle class (a species that has since become endangered).

Alas, as is often the case in nature, the parasite manages to fool the host into believing it is not only benign, but necessary.

[petemill]

Not envy, no. I think you're looking at the problem from a very limited angle. I would classify it as more disillusion at the system that enables there to be billionaire owners of a company with workers on welfare. I have everything I need, so I'm not envious. I want to live in a society where as many others can live in comfort and not just a few at the top.