Envy is unavoidable and must be civilized in order not to damage social life. Up to now norms of social justice like the achievement principle, education and the equality of chances functioned in this respect. But what happens if these norms are no longer valid and are substituted by fateful principles of success? The transition from envy to rage reveals what kinds of consequences the current structural change in society will have. Envy is a genuine part of the "emotional culture" of industrial capitalism and — even as an expression of conflict — contributes to social integration. The spreading of feelings of rage in modern "underclass" — diagnosed and described by contemporary social research — makes clear that modern societies put at stake their civilization patterns if social inequality is reproduced by excluding the "dispensable" and "unnecessary".