The envy that Dante had in mind is that which leads to suffering over the happiness of others and to desiring the downfall and ruin of the successful15 (just think of Sapia, who revelled in the defeat of her fellow citizens in Siena).16 Another kind of envy, which economists do not dislike, is that which drives a person, following the example of others, to procure – through work and resourcefulness – what they are lacking.
The benefits of benign envy cannot be too difficult to identify if Hesiod had already observed them in the seventh century BCE. In the preamble to Works and Days we find this passage: οὐκ ἄρα μοῦνον ἔην Ἐρίδων γένος, ἀλλ᾽ ἐπὶ γαῖαν εἰσὶ δύω: τὴν μέν κεν ἐπαινέσσειε νοήσας, ἣ δ᾽ ἐπιμωμητή: διὰ δ᾽ ἄνδιχα θυμὸν ἔχουσιν.