Gospel of Envy? Deservingness Beliefs, Not Envy, Drive Support for Redistribution

Support for redistribution is often dismissed as driven by a morally questionable motive: Envy. Seemingly supporting this notion, studies found that liberals are prone to envy and that envy predicts support for redistribution. However, we argue that previous scholars have confounded envy with beliefs about deservingness. Specifically, we hypothesize that liberals are (only) prone to envy because they believe that wealth is often not deserved. Consequentially, we argue that these deservingness beliefs drive support for redistribution, not envy. We find support for our predictions in four studies. In two preregistered surveys (U.S. participants) and a large-scale dataset representative of the German population, we show that (1) liberalism only indirectly predicts envy via deservingness beliefs and that (2) deservingness beliefs, not envy, predict support for redistribution. More specifically, similar to previous studies, two of our surveys show a small effect of envy on support for redistribution. However, this relationship becomes insignificant when deservingness beliefs are added to the equation, suggesting a confound in previous studies. Finally, in a preregistered experiment, we presented U.S. participants with a hypothetical scenario in which the wealth of a person was objectively deserved. This manipulation reduced liberals’ support for redistribution, further supporting our hypothesis that left-wingers’ preference for redistribution is driven by deservingness beliefs. Together, our findings challenge the notion that left-wing politics is a "gospel of envy" (Winston Churchill). Instead, support for redistribution appears to be driven by liberals' tendency to question the fairness of wealth distribution.