New research published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin It suggests that public support for wealth redistribution is driven by beliefs in fairness rather than jealousy of the wealthy. The findings suggest that proponents of taxing the wealthy are primarily motivated by the recognition that extreme wealth is not acquired strictly through hard work. This study provides evidence that the common “politics of envy” narrative, which claims that individuals on the left only want to punish the successful, is largely inaccurate.
Critics often dismiss support for economic redistribution as fueled by malicious envy. Envy is a hostile and painful desire to see superior and wealthy people lose their superiority. This idea suggests that individuals on the left support redistributive policies simply out of resentment towards those who have achieved economic success.
However, previous empirical associations between left-wing political views and envy have been inconsistent and weak. Scientists suspected that past discussions had overlooked a key psychological mechanism known as meritocratic beliefs. Meritocracy is the belief that social systems are generally fair, provide equal opportunities for all, and that economic success is a direct result of individual talent and effort.
“A common argument against redistribution is that its supporters are driven by the immoral motive of envy, and indeed some studies have found that envy predicts support for redistribution,” said study author Jasper Nieldals, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Leuven in Belgium.
“But in our study, we found that this effect largely disappears when we take into account meritocratic beliefs, that is, whether people truly believe they deserve their wealth and success. Support for redistribution therefore appears to be driven not by envy, but by the belief that the wealthy often do not deserve advantages. This is what we tested and found in four studies.”
The researchers hypothesized that people on the left are no more inherently jealous than conservatives. Instead, they proposed that left-leaning individuals are simply less likely to endorse meritocratic beliefs. Because they tend to view extreme wealth as a product of luck and structural privilege rather than hard work, they favor redistributing that wealth to address feelings of social injustice.
To test these ideas, scientists conducted a series of four studies with a total of 4,171 participants. The first study involved an online survey of 400 adults living in the United States. Participants completed a standard questionnaire measuring political ideology, endorsement of meritocratic beliefs, propensity toward malicious envy, and support for economic redistribution policies.
The scientists found that left-leaning political views weakly predicted beliefs in a fair meritocracy, which in turn weakly predicted feelings of malicious envy. When looking at support for wealth redistribution, the belief that wealth is not earned was a strong and dominant predictor. Once these meritocratic beliefs were incorporated into the statistical model, malicious envy did not significantly predict support for redistributive policies.
To confirm that these patterns were reliable, the researchers conducted a second study with a larger sample of 793 U.S. adults. The procedure, questionnaire, and demographic questions were similar to the first survey. The results of this second large-scale study closely replicated the first findings on ideology and fairness.
Data from the second survey confirmed that left-leaning ideology was linked to envy only indirectly through reduced belief in fair meritocracy. As before, a lack of belief in meritocracy strongly predicted people’s support for wealth redistribution. Envy completely failed to predict support for redistribution in any meaningful way, challenging traditional political narratives.
Neerdaels and his colleagues then designed an experiment to test these dynamics in a controlled environment with 794 U.S. adults. Participants read a hypothetical scenario about a villager named Alex, who is said to be one of the wealthiest people in town. In the control group, participants received no additional information about how Alex acquired this great wealth.
In the experimental group, participants were explicitly told that Alex had worked very hard and that his wealth was completely deserved. After reading the scenario, participants rated their perceptions of Alex’s worth, feelings of envy, and support for receiving a portion of Alex’s money to help poor villagers. An experimental manipulation succeeded in changing the way participants viewed wealthy villagers.
In the ambiguous control condition, left-leaning participants were more likely to consider Alex’s wealth to be passive income, which predicted increased support for redistribution. But when told explicitly that Alex’s wealth was clearly the result of hard work, left-leaning participants adjusted their opinions. Their perception of self-sufficiency increased, their envy decreased, and their support for redistribution decreased along with the rest of the participants.
Finally, the researchers sought to confirm these patterns outside the United States by analyzing data from a large study in Germany. This fourth study included representative responses from 2,183 German adults. The survey used lagged data, meaning that questions about political ideology, meritocratic beliefs, and general envy were asked at different times over several years.
This lagged approach allowed the scientists to see whether early ideological beliefs predicted later emotional attitudes. Similar to the American sample, the German data also showed that left-leaning political views predicted lower beliefs in meritocracy. This low belief in meritocracy, rather than feelings of envy, encouraged participants to support government policies to reduce income inequality.
“Despite the popularity of the ‘politics of envy’ theory, those who support redistribution are driven not by envy, but by the perception that the rich don’t deserve their wealth,” Nerdahls told CyPost. “It is important to properly understand these motivations, as people may make different judgments about policies depending on whether their support for the policy is seen as rooted in concerns about fairness or envy. We hope our findings will contribute to a more informed debate on redistribution, which is especially important given the high levels of inequality in today’s world.”
However, like all research, this study has some limitations. Because survey data relies on the observation of correlations, it is difficult to definitively prove causation in all cases. Rather than a lack of fairness being the cause of envy, it is still possible that feelings of envy influence how fair one thinks the system is.
Another limitation is that the study relies on a simple left-right scale to measure political ideology. People often have complex political views that vary widely across social and economic issues. Future research should separate economic conservatism from social conservatism and see whether these different dimensions relate differently to meritocracy beliefs and redistribution preferences.
The scientists also noted that their study relied on self-reported support for the hypothesized redistribution. To strengthen these conclusions, future experiments could use behavioral scenarios in which participants are required to redistribute real money. Finally, scientists might investigate how other common arguments, such as concerns about personal freedom or economic growth, shape people’s attitudes toward taxes and wealth.
The study, “The politics of envy? It’s not envy but belief in meritocracy that drives support for redistribution,” was written by Jasper Nieldahls, Lisa Blatz, and Jan Crusius.
