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Dinesh

Dinesh club

Posted: 08 Mar 2021

Taken: 08 Mar 2021

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Farewell to Alms •
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Gregory Clark •

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Figure 18.1

Figure 18.1
Average income per capita and average happiness, Japan, 1958-2004. Data from Veenhoven, 2005, and Heston et al., 2006
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 Dinesh
Dinesh club
The association of income with happiness observed within societies might lead us to believe naively that another profound effect of the Industrial Revolution was to spread happiness and good cheer around the globe. Unfortunately there is little evidence of gains in happiness from gains in income, life expectancy, or health by societies as a whole. This can be observed in two ways. First, for some societies, such as Japan and United States, we have survey measures of happiness that extend back over fifty years or more, a period during which these countries became much richer as a result of modern economic growth. Yet, as Richard Easterlin en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Easterlin first pointed out in 1974, there has been no increase in average happiness with the growth of incomes. Figure 18.1 shows the average reported happiness in Japan from 1958 to 2004, as well as income per capital measured in prices for the year 2000. Over the nearly fifty years from 1958 to 2004 income per person rose nearly sevenfold, while reported happiness, if anything declined slightly.

There has been much discussion of the appropriate interpretation of the failure of higher income to produce greater happiness over time and across countries. The key problem here is the ample evidence that our happiness depends not on our absolute level of well-being, but instead on how we are doing relative to our reference group. Each individual -- by acquiring more income, by buying a larger house in a nicer neighborhood, by driving a more elegant car -- can make him- or herself happier. But happier only at the expense of those with less income, meaner housing, and junkier cars. Money will buy happiness, but that happiness is transferred from someone else, not added to the common pool. ~

Since we are likely mainly the descendants of the strivers of the pre-industrial world, the people driven to achieve greater economic success than their peers, these findings perhaps reflect our biological heritage from the Malthusian era. Perhaps we are not designed to be content, but instead fo forever compare our lot with that of our competitors, and to be happy only when we do better. The contented may simply have died out in the Malthusian era. ~ page 376
4 years ago. Edited 4 years ago.
 Dinesh
Dinesh club
Excerpt from:

A Farewell to Alms
4 years ago.

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