Daniel Gilbert: "Economies thrive when individuals strive, but because individuals will only strive for their own happiness, it is essential that they mistakenly believe that producing and consuming are routes to personal well-being... The production of wealth does not necessarily make individuals happy, but it does serve the needs of an economy, which serves the needs of a stable society, which serves as a network for the propagation of delusional beliefs about happiness and wealth."
posted by howtolive.org at
11:02 AM
3 Comments:
If you don't think wealth produces real happiness then don't understand poverty. Consider 300 years ago, the vast majority of the world was poor. Then capitalism and industrialization, all driven by greed, has made it possible for the world to end poverty. Consider reading Jeffrey Sachs recent work on the subject for further enlightenment.
By
Chris, at 12:36 PM
chris,
Thanks for your comments. I think we mostly agree on this. As a first approximation, wealth and happiness are positively correlated. But as Gilbert explained in Stumbling on Happiness and countless studies have confirmed, the fairly well-off are typically much happier than the poor, but the extremely affluent are no happier than the fairly well-off. There are also other confounding factors, e.g. the impact of poverty on happiness is largely relative, so someone in an industrialized nation at the 75th percentile 500 years ago would be less economically well off but subjectively happier than someone at the 25th percentile today.
I partially agree with Gordon Gecko's motto that greed is good, in that it has led to the current affluence in the industrialized part of the world, and I feel fortunate to be a beneficiary of the cumulative labor of others. But runaway greed is not optimal for either the individual or the state, and if more people read Gilbert's book I think they'd understand happiness, the world, and themselves a little better.
I'm not familiar with Jeffrey Sachs but I'll check him out, thanks for the suggestion.
By
howtolive.org, at 11:06 AM
Sounds like chris didn't understand the essence of your original post. I don't think you don't understand poverty, it is clear from your response that you are a step ahead in your understanding of poverty and wealth AND more importantly the implications and obvious relativity of happiness.
I agree that there is a correlation between wealth and happiness and I don't want to make a generalization, but take a third-world country in Latin America, as an example. People in isolation don't see the level of dispararity with the wealthy so you can see that they can achieve happiness (as much as anyone with any amount of wealth) when what they value is things like family. You just need to go to a public park on a Sunday afternoon and you will see relatively "poor" families, they are as happy as any rich person could be.
By
Anonymous, at 4:36 PM
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