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Why Prosperity Has Increased but Happiness Has Not

nytimes.com

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Re: Why Prosperity Has Increased but Happiness Has Not

#11

Post by lifeisstillgood »

toasterlovin wrote: post #3

Humans are social animals. One of the primary drives of most social animals is to get as high up in the status/dominance hierarchy as possible, since this improves an organism's access to mates. Status and dominance are relative to other members of the species and, thus, unrelated to the absolute level of an organism's access to food and other resources.

Humans are also security focused rational animals, and if we can believe that there really is enough for us and no one will take it away, then happiness might be for all. Perhaps UBI will make us all happy

Re: Why Prosperity Has Increased but Happiness Has Not

#12

Post by petermcneeley »

opportune wrote: post #4

One usually-not-mentioned premise is that even though goods’ costs have typically been going down over time as physical product technology improves, many services (the majority of developed economies) are relatively unaffected by improvements in technology because they rely almost exclusively on labor. Rising inequality will make services more expensive to those on the poorer end. Poor people don’t struggle to get sm…

Inequality dramatically matters in any realm where there is a finite resource. I do not comprehend how articles are written with the idea that relative wealth has no effect on prices.

Re: Why Prosperity Has Increased but Happiness Has Not

#13

Post by noobermin »

ddingus wrote: post #2

A majority of Americans simply are not prosperous. Having nice things, TV, mobile phones and other similar items reflects the overall product of industry. Those are technically luxuries. All good, and welcome, but wealth, security needed for happiness us a different thing. Wealth, in the basic human sense, is all about time and how much of it is availiable for people to assign purpose, rather than have that purpose m…

>In a macro sense, we as a nation are prosporous.

>

>In a micro sense, people do not see that prosperity as basic wealth, and it manifests as their personal cost and risk exposure not matched to their income.

This isn't a magical mystery. It's very simple to explain. Wealth is a power law. An average is the most useless metric to use yet everyone still does it. In the same country with Manhattan, you have people with lead filled pipes and raw sewage on their front lawns because wealth is not distributed evenly.

And this isn't by accident. Wages for most working people have not kept up with inflation, and wages diverged from productivity since a little before the Reagan area. [0] The value people create doesn't evaporate, it goes to the top.

[0] https://www.epi.org/publication/understanding-the-historic-d...

Re: Why Prosperity Has Increased but Happiness Has Not

#14

Post by coldtea »

The title is a little out of date. Prosperity has been increasing in the 20th century, but has not increased for a few decades.

Sure, crap like gadgets is now cheaper, but buying a house, giving your kids an education, and so on have increased. In the 40s and 50s a middle class household could get by just fine (and the house be bought) by a single income earner. Such a house now would be on the verge of bankruptcy. And that's not even adding in the decline of working class jobs, and the instability of most modern careers (outside of IT which still has it good).

Re: Why Prosperity Has Increased but Happiness Has Not

#15

Post by r00fus »

The article cites income increase but doesn't talk about the necessary factors even if you're only talking numbers:

1) real inflation (ie, cost of living has skyrocketed due to rent/medical) outweighs any income increases.

2) overall wealth was not accounted for - in fact many Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, probably far more than at any corresponding postwar period in the US.

In short "prosperity" != income. Ignoring things like cost of living and the high possibility of surprise bankruptcy due to medical emergencies lead to a very inaccurate picture.

Re: Why Prosperity Has Increased but Happiness Has Not

#16

Post by joe_the_user »

mjevans wrote: post #7

This also ignores increases in costs of living, such as housing, and the destruction of concepts like 'career paths' where someone would be with a company for a long time and build economic and social value within a given area.

Indeed, claims for increase in prosperity seem pretty illusionary.

Headline: Most Americans are one paycheck away from the street

Subheading: Some 63% of people can’t deal with a $500 emergency

The website is CBS Market, fairly respectable, draws on several plausible studies.

Link: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/most-americans-are-one-pay...

Re: Why Prosperity Has Increased but Happiness Has Not

#17

Post by joe_the_user »

coldtea wrote: post #14

The title is a little out of date. Prosperity has been increasing in the 20th century, but has not increased for a few decades. Sure, crap like gadgets is now cheaper, but buying a house, giving your kids an education, and so on have increased. In the 40s and 50s a middle class household could get by just fine (and the house be bought) by a single income earner. Such a house now would be on the verge of bankruptcy. A…

Indeed, though reading the article a bit more closely, it has a certain subtext of "look workers, money doesn't buy happiness, that's why we, the elites, stopped paying you any more. Learning the lesson!"

Re: Why Prosperity Has Increased but Happiness Has Not

#18

Post by technobabble »

coldtea wrote: post #14

The title is a little out of date. Prosperity has been increasing in the 20th century, but has not increased for a few decades. Sure, crap like gadgets is now cheaper, but buying a house, giving your kids an education, and so on have increased. In the 40s and 50s a middle class household could get by just fine (and the house be bought) by a single income earner. Such a house now would be on the verge of bankruptcy. A…

To further your analogy, it sometimes feels that the Maslow's hierarchy of needs is "hollowed out" at the bottom of the pyramid, and to keep the hollowing out disguised, companies and advertisers divert attention to the top of the pyramid i.e. "look how everything's awesome! Take your complimentary beer".

Re: Why Prosperity Has Increased but Happiness Has Not

#19

Post by noobermin »

toasterlovin wrote: post #3

Humans are social animals. One of the primary drives of most social animals is to get as high up in the status/dominance hierarchy as possible, since this improves an organism's access to mates. Status and dominance are relative to other members of the species and, thus, unrelated to the absolute level of an organism's access to food and other resources.

This argument I see to often really ignores the strength of the power law that exists in the US and other countries. In the Nordic states for example, there is still a power law but people are much happier than here because the power law is much weaker. People in the US have a severe lack of access to basic needs and in fact their access to basic needs has eroded in the last few decades comparatively.

Re: Why Prosperity Has Increased but Happiness Has Not

#20

Post by maxxxxx »

toasterlovin wrote: post #3

Humans are social animals. One of the primary drives of most social animals is to get as high up in the status/dominance hierarchy as possible, since this improves an organism's access to mates. Status and dominance are relative to other members of the species and, thus, unrelated to the absolute level of an organism's access to food and other resources.

"get as high up in the status/dominance hierarchy as possible,"

I don't think that's true. A lot of people are OK with getting high enough to have a life they view as decent. Only very few want to get as high as possible.

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