Economist Robert H. Frank is, in my opinion, the most sophisticated and realistic critic of consumer culture. Don't get me wrong--I'm not a fan, as anyone who has read TSOS will know. Frank is completely obsessed with status and wildly underappreciative of material pleasures. But at least he's a good economic modeler and not willfully ignorant of ordinary people's lives.
His brief entry in an NYT year-end "Ideas" wrapup wouldn't be surprising coming from someone like me. (Nor would the typical NYT reader take it seriously coming from someone like me.) But perhaps from Frank, a known critic of the pursuit of upward mobility, people will recognize what once would have been considered an obvious truth:
In conferences around the globe this year, psychologists reported that measures of human happiness scarcely change when national income grows. Citing this finding, many social critics now insist that income growth no longer promotes well-being.
Experience suggests otherwise. Years ago, when I was a graduate student with two children in diapers, my wife called in distress to report that our 10-year-old clothes dryer had died. That evening I scanned the classified ads, made numerous calls and the next day drove out to inspect several machines. After haggling with the owner of a five-year-old Kenmore, I wrote a check we could barely cover. I drove a friend's truck across town to pick it up, then drove 25 miles to take the old machine to the dump. Four days and numerous hardware store visits later, we again had a working dryer.
I now earn many times what I did then. Recently my wife called to say that another dryer had died. "Call Werninck's," I suggested. When I got home that evening, the old machine was gone and a new one already up and running. Money doesn't guarantee happiness. But having enough can make life a lot less stressful.
As Ben Stein often notes, the secret to connecting money and happiness is to live well within your means, but having greater means is still more fun than having less. |
