The Dubious Rewards of Consumption, by Alan Thein Durning
Measured in constant dollars, the world’s people have consumed as many goods and services since 1950 as all previous generations put together. Since 1940, Americans alone have used up as large a share of the earth’s mineral resources as did everyone before them combined. Yet this historical epoch of titanic consumption appears to have failed to make the consumer class any happier.
[ . . . .]
Any relationship that does exist between income and happiness is relative rather than absolute. The happiness that people derive from consumption is based on whether they consume more than their neighbours and more than they did in the past. Thus, psychological data from diverse societies such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Israel, Brazil, and India show that the top income strata tend to be slightly happier than the middle strata, and the bottom group tends to be the least happy. The Upper classes in any society are more satisfied with their lives than the lower classes are, but they are no more satisfied than the upper classes of much poorer countries–nor than the upper classes were in the less affluent past. Consumption is thus a treadmill, with everyone judging their status by who is ahead and who is behind.
Food for thought when you get an attack of the “gotta haves.”
I can’t remember feeling like I had a great deal more pocket money when I made $100,000 a year versus when I made $15,000. A 6-fold increase should have felt different somehow. And now that I’m much closer to that smaller sum, I still don’t feel much, if any, different.
Interesting article.
Swiped from Rebecca.