Some years ago I had a moment of blinding clarity about the continuum of jealousy, covetousness, and envy. We tend to lump them in together as thought they were the same thing but they are not.
Jealousy is resentment resulting from the beneficence created by or accrued to another. It is primary an expression of insecurity. Jealousy says “I resent what you have.”
Covetousness builds on jealousy and says “I resent what you have, and I will try to take it.”
Envy is the name of the perniciousness abounding in the collectivist mind, and says “I resent what you have, and I will try to take it from you. If I cannot succeed in taking it, I will destroy it so that you cannot have it either.”
What looters never understand is how theft affects those who create and produce.
Looting is all well and good, as long as there’s something to take.
Beyond a certain point, creation and production ceases, leaving an ever shrinking stock of goods that will not be replaced.
Once thieves run out of victims, they start in on each other.