Talk:Class envy

message: Where does this term come from? The article as it stands doesn't reference any source or investigative tradition. (Such as anthropology, sociology, or whatever.) Is the term from a particular discipline? (If so, how widely accepted within that discipline is it, and how central is it?) From political rhetoric? (If so, whose rhetoric?) Without some useful context, it's just a highly value-laded but meaningless article. Tannin
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"Some people claim that the primary cause of the discontent of the poor is the generation of envy towards the rich by some third force. These proponents of the idea of class envy describe class relations primarily interms of voluntary cultural beliefs. The term's culturalist response to class antagonism denies the possibility of a genuine basis for class conflict."
Can someone explain to me what this means?  "Some third force...culturalist response".  What does this mean?  This is either nonsense, or can be written in plain English, if it is not nonsense, I don't know, because I have no idea what it is talking about.  Please rewrite in English if you think it needs to be there. -- Lancemurdoch 06:30, 11 Jan 2004 (UTC)

message: Replaced the very POV paragraph:
Some cliches expressing envy towards the rich include: 
*that the rich "won life's lottery".
*referring to low income people as 'working people' and not stating that higher income people also work.
*that the rich "were born with a silver spoon in their mouthes" - that wealth is inherited rather than attained through effort.
*referring to all business people as robber-barons.
with the less POV paragraph:
Those who believe in the existance of class envy argue that statments like the rich "won life's lottery" or that the rich "were born with a silver spoon in their mouthes" are examples of class envy. They also argue against referring to low income people as 'working people' because they that higher income people also work. They also reject referring to all business people as robber-barons.
Saul Taylor 14:31, 11 Jan 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: NPOV

message: *"Class envy" isn't a developed concept, like, say, "class consciousness" or "free market."  It just means "envy." If you want to get expansive, it is a rhetorical cliché used to discount political arguments that attack social inequity as being merely a manifestation of envy.  Might be mentioned in a description of political rhetoric, or in a dictionary under "envy," but it's not a theory or a "phenomenon" or a "sociological practice." It's misleading to give this it's own article, as if it were one of those things. Delete. BTfromLA 09:13, 11 Jan 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: From VfD

message: "The simplest counter-argument is that one's feelings are irrelevant in discussions of politics, and that even assuming class envy truly exists, it does not detract from the validity of the ideas put forward by those who harbor this emotion. "
How is the above an argument? It seems to be a simple assertion. And does anyone really believe that "feelings" are irrelevant in discussions of politics? That seems like an absurd claim. 
--Mc6809e 20:53, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: In Wikipedia, we do not remove arguments simply because one reader doesn't like them. Having settled that, let me explain what the argument you consider so "poor" is actually trying to say: The point is that "class envy" is an ad hominem fallacy. An assertion should be judged on its own merits, not on the merits of the person making the assertion - in other words, if a complete lunatic says that 2+2=4, you can't say that he is wrong simply because he's a lunatic. If you want to prove him wrong, you've got to prove that 2+2 does not equal 4 (good luck with that!). Similarly, if a person is "envious" or "emotional" or doesn't have "clear thinking", that doesn't prove anything about what he is saying. If you disagree with him, you have to prove that his arguments are wrong, not that he is "emotional". An emotional man can still make perfectly valid arguments. In fact, most people are emotional when they discuss matters that are very important to them. -- Mihnea Tudoreanu 11:23, 9 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Argument" just a simple assertion 

message: As far as I know, "class envy" is essentially a First World notion. In societies with a tiny number of rich and a huge number of poor (as opposed to a tiny number of super-rich and a huge number of merely rich), the class struggle is not described as "class envy". Leninism explains this quite well. Imperialism bribes its own working class with superprofits extracted from the Third World, turning that class into an aristocracy of labour that is not exploited. The conflict between that class and the domestic bourgeoisie will be relatively tame, something like "class envy", since the class interests of both classes are similar (crucially, they're both in favour of imperialism). In a Third World country, the disparities are much sharper and the competing classes are not allied, so the class struggle is a bitter one. No one would dare to characterise as "class envy" the struggle of workers who go to bed hungry at night. Shorne 05:40, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Nice comment Shorne, though its also arguable from outside of Lenin (and the labour aristocracy argument also arises outside of Lenin too).  Unfortunately this misshapen phrase "class envy" is apparently in use by a couple of US newspapers and the UK Tories.  Previous attempts to discuss instances of ruling or middle class appropriation of lower class culture faltered when the article went through a Votes for Deletion.  (Louis XIV's court life, /pastoral/ plays etc., rap as middle class fashion).  I think it would be great to point out that outright class war, concieved of as such by all involved, still exists, Korean strikes etc., to point out that this article has limited scope. Fifelfoo 22:15, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  A First World notion 

message: Has this actually been cleaned up for neutral point of view? Maybe it's neutral tone of voice, but it seems the composite author is presenting a fairly Marxist academic worldview, which is a fringe veiwpoint, in a seemingly rational tone in order to make it appear perfectly normal. I don't ask for a rightwing diatribe against class warfare, after all politics is about interest groups so it makes sense that classes would fight against each other in those areas where their interests diverge. But, we could at least put forward a pro-market view that production of new wealth is more important than reallocation of existing wealth.
:Have you had a full-frontal?  That's just as NPOV as the view you're critiqueing.  Neither Marxism nor pro-market view points are NPOV. Fifelfoo 06:45, 26 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV 

message: :Elements of "class envy" phenomena can be said to exist in many cultures - for example, the persistent Australian myth of the "dole bludger," one who avoids work and lives on the wealth of others.
Myth?  I know plenty of them.
Myth? Meet my cousins.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.151.32.25 (talk) 22:28, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Myth of the dole bludger? 

message: Used in the live episode, when Bart is sad that the chubby dweebish kid has a bigger and better tree house than him. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simprovised67.45.96.152 (talk) 00:29, 16 May 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Used on The Simpsons by that HaHa bully character