Envy has become a drive wheel of our modern world. It is the passion that governs our economic life. Modern capitalism relies on its ability to create and increase scarcity and it therefore depends largely on the omnipresence of envy. In affluent societies the availability of material goods increases the demand for positional goods based on social scarcity. Most often it is “ envy, emulation, or pride” creating this kind of scarcity, in which “satisfaction is derived from relative position alone, being in front, or from being behind.” As long as people desire what others desire scarcity will be the never-ending condition of our lives that keeps our economy running. Through envy nearly any object can turn into a desirable commodity promising unending happiness.   Modern advertising is the best example to illustrate the importance of envy to keep our economy going. Advertising uses envy to make commodities desirable. Posters, announcements and TV-spots show us enviable people who have those things and goods we lack but nonetheless need to gain happiness. Advertisement sells products with the help of envious contagion. Most of the time envy itself remains hidden and is not directly mentioned in commercials. But even this may no longer be true. Envy seems to lose its traditional bad reputation. More and more commercials directly refer to envy to make their commodities more desirable. The most well known example of an open reference to envy is a perfume produced by the Italian company Gucci with the brand name “Envy” promising that you will not only be envied for some external object that belongs to you but for your very self embodied in a seductive fragrance.   Those of you familiar with traditional definitions of envy and emulation may, however, question my thesis that our modern economy is driven by envy. Is it really envy that governs our economy or would not emulation be a more appropriate and less moralizing term? There is an easy answer to this question. In parallel with the emergence of our modern world and the rise of capitalism the traditional distinction between bad envy and good emulation has slowly lost its meaning. Where Immanuel Kant, for instance, refers to the passions nature uses to turn a sheepish, idle and inactive Arcadia into a prosperous culture he refers to an “ enviously competitive vanity” that no longer allows a neat distinction between envy and emulation but mentions a form of human desire comprising both these traditionally distinguished emotions.