Resentment Against Achievement

Robert Sheaffer minces no words, translating the proverb "Blessed are the poor" into "Stop blessing those who have made a mess of their lives." In his explosive, controversial book, Sheaffer predicts that a society which truly believes that failure is blessed will not long prevail on this earth.

Excoriating "negative entropy" as a virtue, Sheaffer describes two fundamentally differing systems of morality which, he writes, have created a pervasive, complex conflict throughout the history of m...