The spitefulness of our politics can be plausibly traced to a number of causes: fear and hatred of racial minorities; shocks due to technological change; disinformation campaigns by corporations and political actors; the collapse of local communities and institutions; fantasies about a now-irretrievable national past. What leads political communities to reject the common good and instead choose to fight over a shrinking pie (or toppled cake)? What emerges from the evidence assembled in the book is a picture of spite as part of the corrosive effects of economic inequality. That spite wells up in response to inequality is suggested by the ultimatum game: Low offers provoke spiteful rejections. But the relationship between spite and social stratification is more intricate. Feelings of spite, it turns out, are intimately tied to judgments about status. People often act spitefully, McCarthy-Jones argues, to gain an advantage over a rival. In competitive contexts in which resources are limited, damaging someone else’s status can rebound to our benefit. Evidence from laboratory games shows that players will often destroy each other’s chance at monetary gain not to restore equality, but to get ahead. Spite defends such motivated behavior as having equalizing effects—tearing down the rich to make room for the poor—though it does so only half-heartedly. (The book’s focus on the “upside” of spite may be chalked up to the fact that popular social-science publishing all but requires a counterintuitive frame.) Spite is a symptom of social breakdown. But it is not a trustworthy guide to fair action. This ugly feeling is self-multiplying: It tends to lead not toward justice but toward more spite.