Too little is said about covetousness and the part it plays in our daily lives and politics. Yet the desire to possess what belongs to someone else can become resentment, and resentment can harden into anger. Here lies an important connection between the sin condemned by Christianity and the politics of grievance advanced by the Marxist-socialist left.
Not every grievance, however, arises from envy. Seeking redress for an actual injustice is different from wanting another person’s wealth, influence, standing, or talent. That distinction matters. Without it, legitimate demands for justice become entangled with demands that others surrender what they have honestly earned.
Christian teaching condemns the unjust acquisition of wealth and property, particularly when it harms neighbors or obstructs their ability to work and compete. It does not condemn ambition, hard work, creative thought, or entrepreneurship. Nor does it forbid improving one’s circumstances, acquiring goods legitimately, or selling the fruits of one’s labor in the marketplace.
Covetousness can afflict both those who take from others and those persuaded that another’s prosperity proves their own exploitation. The Marxist-socialist argument maintains that capital exploits labor. In my judgment, its labor theory of value fails both theoretically and practically. Across history, efforts to organize society around socialism or communism have produced miserable failures. I see that same misguided impulse operating today in New York City and Seattle.
Meanwhile, people who devise useful products, improve crop yields, build businesses, and employ others assume considerable financial and personal risks. Their ingenuity can improve life for everyone. Calling these productive capitalists’ “exploiters” merely because they succeed confuses the creation of wealth with its wrongful acquisition.
Consider two complaints: “My employer withheld wages I earned.” “My employer earns more and possesses more than I do; therefore, we deserve equal wages, outcomes, and wealth.”
The first alleges a specific wrong. It calls for evidence, a fair determination, and, if substantiated, a remedy. The second treats unequal circumstances as sufficient proof of injustice. To my mind, that is covetousness dressed in the language of fairness.
Christian teaching places moral obligations on individuals, institutions, and governments alike. “Render unto Caesar” does not erase those obligations. Neither should our shared creation in God’s image be confused with a promise of identical material outcomes. Stewardship, enterprise, and participation in competitive markets can serve both individual well-being and the common good.
Grievance politics blurs these distinctions. It encourages resentment toward successful people simply because they are successful, as though their achievements necessarily represent something stolen from somebody else. But another person’s gain does not, by itself, establish my dispossession.
There is another face of covetousness, equally deserving of condemnation: the wealthy person’s relentless appetite for more. Micah 2:2 describes people who covet fields and seize them, taking houses and oppressing their owners. Wealth offers no exemption from the commandment against coveting.
A revealing exchange between Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller captures the alternative. At a billionaire’s party on Shelter Island, Vonnegut asked Heller how he felt knowing their host might have earned more in one day than Catch-22 had earned throughout its history.
In Vonnegut’s poem “Joe Heller,” Heller replies: “I’ve got something he can never have.”
What was it? “The knowledge that I’ve got enough.”
That answer challenges rich and poor alike. Even amid financial difficulty, we should remember how much we possess compared with the circumstances endured by much of humanity since the Bronze Age. We should remember the hardships of those who came before us. We should always honor the sacrifices made by others to give us the lives we have today.
People struggling to support themselves and their families deserve help while working to help themselves. But accepting somebody else’s insistence that one is helplessly exploited can diminish personal sovereignty and self-respect. Assistance should strengthen independence, not cultivate permanent resentment.
In my opinion, today’s Democrats, especially those aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America, too often exploit grievances themselves. Moving from one aggrieved constituency to another, they promise political remedies for inequalities that every human life encounters.
Compare Elon Musk with the average politician. One creates products, enterprises, and jobs; the other promises to legislate equality. That contrast raises a question: Who produces improvements, and who merely promises them?
We should confront genuine injustice wherever it occurs. But we should also recognize covetousness, whether it appears as endless acquisition or politically cultivated envy. Justice requires discernment; resentment offers only another grievance.
