Perhaps in reply to Sam Adams, after that liberty had been gotten, we have Alexis de Tocqueville in Democracy in America commenting on how it makes us look at what others have when we are sure we are equals.
"When everything is more or less level, the slightest variation is noticed. Hence the more equal men are, the more insatiable will be their longing for equality...That is the reason for the strange melancholy often haunting inhabitants of democracies in the midst of abundance, and of that disgust with life sometimes gripping them in calm and easy circumstances."
Of course, Adams was talking to those who already had wealth, de Tocqueville about those who perceived that somebody else --somebody no better than themselves-- had greater money, goods, privilege, or position.
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