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Fulfillment Paradox
By editor
Created 07/14/2009 - 17:40
We consume three times more than our grandparents – why aren’t
we happier?
Ian Bullock [1]
Ian Bullock
85
Thought Control in Economics [2]

happinomics_t.jpg [3]
Splash Image:

happinomics_splash.jpg [4]

On a Tuesday morning in June, a Vancouver man named Salim and his

beloved decided to get married. They tracked down a minister and a few
hours later in Choklit Park, realized they needed a witness. I was crossing the
street when I saw three people waving me over. “Sorry, I’ve got a meeting,” I
said, when they asked me to help. “It will take five minutes,” the minister
assured me. “We’ll say the vows, you’ll sign the registrar and then you’ll be
off.” So in Choklit Park – overlooking Yaletown’s office towers and million-
dollar condos – Salim and his bride made their solemn oaths. I joined these
strangers in a bubble of unexpected, collective happiness.

What can this bubble tell us about happiness and economics? Quite a lot.

For hundreds of years we have believed that increased material wealth makes
us happier, and we have shaped our world accordingly. We have built big box
stores along highways that can only be reached by car. We have built larger
and larger vehicles that isolate us from others and emit dangerous levels of
carbon. We work 40 hours a week – or more – to maintain this lifestyle. Why
do we believe that making a lot of money makes us happy? “We didn’t evolve
with iPods and fancy cars,” explains Christopher Barrington-Leigh, an
economist at the University of British Columbia. “How could we possibly have
a preset level of satisfaction that relates material things to how happy
we are?”

For hundreds of years we have believed that increased material wealth makes
us happier, and we have shaped our world accordingly.
While the world has certainly grown richer in the last 50 years, most
happiness economists agree that happiness and life satisfaction levels have
remained constant. The United States, for example, has failed to see higher
happiness levels since the end of the Second World War, despite a
quadrupling of their gdp. The New York Times recently reported that while
incomes in China grew by 250 percent between 1994 and 2007, life
satisfaction levels shrank drastically. The Easterlin Paradox, a theory
developed in 1974, explains this phenomena: Money makes us happier until
average incomes are achieved. After that, money’s affect on happiness is
greatly reduced.

So if Hummers and iPods won’t make us happier, what will? Instead of

concentrating on the accumulation of wealth, we should be concentrating on
the quality of our human relationships. Social scientists and economists have
shown that groups with strong social networks usually have lower crime rates,
better child welfare and public health, and less political corruption … all of
which translate into greater happiness and life satisfaction. Societies that are
democratic, supportive of gender equality and more accepting of marginalized
groups such as immigrants and homosexuals tend to be happier societies
as well.

Back in Choklit Park, the minister handed me the marriage papers to sign. I
was going to be late for my meeting, but something more important was going
on. Salim and his new wife were trusting me to sign the document that could
chart the course of their lives for many years to come. Married people
generally report greater life satisfaction than unmarried people: One study
suggests that this marriage could produce the same happiness as a
quadrupling of Salim’s annual income. (Although if Salim’s proposal was as
whimsical as he said it was, the effect of his marriage could be similar to that
of winning the lottery: a sudden spike in happiness that quickly diminishes.)

The United States has failed to see higher happiness levels since the end of
the Second World War.

In the distance the downtown sector shimmered with economic productivity,

but in Choklit Park we had enacted a microcosm of pro-social, financially
neutral, happiness-inducing activity that would slip below the radar of
mainstream economics. As Senator Bobby Kennedy famously said to a group
of Kansas students: “[gdp] measures everything, in short, except that which
makes life worthwhile.” Will happinomics actually free us from the big box
stores and the never-ending mutations of the iPod? Probably not. But people
are paying attention. The government of Bhutan has been following a policy of
Gross National Happiness since 1972, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy
recently announced that happiness levels would be taken into account when
measuring the country’s economic performance. In the coming years, we can
expect to find these ideas beginning to influence our government policies. In
the meantime, we can open ourselves to our communities and reap the
dividends of a rich social life.

Ian Bullock is a Vancouver freelance writer who is at work on his first novel.
 • Editorial
• 85
• economics
• happiness
• Paradigm Lost

Source URL: https://www.adbusters.org/magazine/85/happiness.html

Links:
[1] https://www.adbusters.org/authors/ian_bullock
[2] https://www.adbusters.org/magazine/85
[3] https://www.adbusters.org/files/magazine/articles/happinomics_t_0.jpg
[4]
https://www.adbusters.org/files/magazine/splash_image/happinomics_splash.j
pg