The costs of envy can be especially high

The Quest for Cosmic Justice by Thomas Sowell, p. 78

The first kind of envy - the more or less natural and potentially beneficial envy that spurs self-development and achievement - creates few incentives for third parties to try to mobilize and heighten it for their own benefit. It is the second kind of envy, expressed in hostility toward others, that is useful for third parties pursuing careers as politicians, group activists, or ideologues. It is this kind of envy which can have high costs to society at large and to the poor especially. It is not simply that the poor may suffer psychically from having less than others and from being encouraged to dwell on their current situation, rather than concentrate on improving it. The very terms of the discussion encourage them to attribute their less fortunate position to social barriers, if not political plots, and so to neglect the kinds of efforts and skills which are capable of lifting them to higher economic and social levels.

Poorer Groups

For the currently less fortunate members of society, when it misdirects their conceptions and energies. Where poorer people are lacking in human capital - skills, education, discipline, foresight - one of the sources from which they can acquire these things are more prosperous people who have more of these various forms of human capital. This may happen directly through apprenticeship, advice, or formal tutelage, or it may happen indirectly through observation, reflection, and imitation. However, all these ways of advancing out of poverty can be short-circuited by an ideology of envy that attributes the greater prosperity of others to "exploitation" of people like themselves, to oppression, bias, or unworthy motives such as "greed", racism, and the like. Acquisition of human capital in general seems futile under this conception and acquisition of human capital from exploiters, the greedy, and racists especially distasteful.