Liberal Values Versus Envy

Abstract

An institutional setting of individual liberty with private property and voluntary exchange generates more wealth and coordinated activity than any governmental rule could ever provide. But liberal values are hard to grow and difficult to defend against its many enemies. According to Mises, the inherent elements of the anti-capitalist attitude are ignorance, envy, and hatred. Envy is a sin that corrupts souls and leads to economic disaster. Whereas the market is a win-win mechanism, envy promotes lose-lose situations. What best characterizes envy is the desire to deprive the envied from their success. Resentment is very destructive because it is directed toward those who excel. Envy paralyzes the progress of society. Innovations are not introduced, savings and investment are impaired, and incentives for training disappear. Everything runs into the wall of envy. If we want to avoid the destruction of humanity, it should be our most pressing duty to restrain envy by all means.

Professor Jesús Huerta de Soto embodies the rarest union of the highest intellectual and moral capacities in the same person. After having studied Business Administration and Economics in the University of Barcelona (UB) under most prevalent approach of Keynes interventionism and without a single reference neither to the Austrian School of Economics nor the Public Choice, a humble self tried to further study praxeology there. But the attempt was unsuccessful. Later I discovered the work of Huerta de Soto. That was really an amazing discovery. After enthusiastically reading his magnificent opus, I contacted him without much hope of reply. But the reality exceeded the best expectations. And, in fact, it continues to be so a decade later. Because the luminosity that emanates from truth and goodness is eternal.