Workers simultaneously deny and endorse money’s power to buy happiness.

Evidence

Indeed, hardly a man thought the rich were happier. And yet, O’Hara says, on another occasion, “What is the most important thing that money can buy? Happiness, when you come down to it.” Perhaps he means that money buys happiness for the average man, but not for the rich. But more likely he means [“I can take care of a gnawing and illegitimate envy by appropriating happiness for me and my kind.”] — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 2185

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The internal contradiction—denying the rich happiness while affirming money buys happiness—reveals a sophisticated dual-consciousness where envy is managed by appropriation rather than resolved. This is the theoretical payoff of the chapter’s whole argument.
• XREF: This dual consciousness resonates with system justification theory’s concept of false consciousness and with Gramsci’s notion of contradictory class consciousness.