SOCIETATEA COMPETIȚIEI: DE LA VICIUL INVIDIEI LA EMULAȚIA CAPITALISTĂ
THE SOCIETY OF COMPETITION: FROM ENVY TO CAPITALIST EMULATION

Summary/Abstract: In 1754, Rousseau thought of envy and shame as judgments about oneself based on the judgment of the others and increasing in the context of comparisons and social inequalities. One century later, in his edifying discourses, Kierkegaard warned of the peril of comparing ourselves to the others, regarding comparison as a source of individual unhappiness. Beyond these historical landmarks, I will trace the role and prevalence of an emotion, from a vice which has been listed as one of the seven deadly sins (envy) to its conversion into an economic virtue (competition) that enhances accumulation and consumption. The destiny of this vice appears to be inextricably linked to the fact that the individualism of Western societies in recent decades has provided their members with a private sphere (including vices), but at the same time it has created an inter-individual visibility in which everyone compares their level of well-being with the welfare of their neighbour. So what kind of ethics does the spirit of capitalism truly presuppose as an ideological commitment? Which is the true correlation between the capitalist principle of continuous accumulation and what we often call the “consumer society”? Which is the role of competition and envy in regulating the mechanisms of capitalism and in stimulating consumption and overproduction? Which are the psychological resources for amplifying consumption in connection with the abundance of goods? Is today’s capitalism based on the same ethical and psychological structures that formed the underground foundations of the birth of capitalism almost three centuries ago? The nodal point of these inquiries could be the critique of a “society of competition” in which the old moral imperatives are overturned in the urge to outclass our neighbour, and when several critical theories of the twentieth century describing a “consumer society”, a “society of the spectacle”, or a “society of abundance” demonstrate again their significance.

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