and the rats keep winning the rat race... but i'm not gonna let it bother me tonight.
Posted on 11/24/2007 9:50:02 AM PST by shrinkermd
...We are a country obsessed with consumption, which would be fine if we seemed to be fulfilled getting bigger TVs but having less time to watch them. But, in the aggregate, that's not the case. "The things that we get used to most easily and then take for granted are our material possessions -- our car, our house," writes Layard. "But there is lots of evidence that people underestimate the process of habituation." The amount of happiness we think we'll get from a new house, and the amount of happiness we actually get from a new house, are not the same.
So why the ceaseless search for stuff? In a word, competition. It's worth it to stay ahead in the rat race. Researchers have asked people which they'd prefer: a world in which they made $50,000 but everyone else made half that; or one in which they made $100,000 and everyone else made twice that (prices are the same in both worlds). The majority preferred the first world. They would happily make less money, as long as everyone else made even less money.
Surveys have returned similar results for houses. Most individuals prefer a smaller house in a world where their neighbors have even smaller houses to a bigger house in a world where their neighbors have even bigger houses. Winning the competition is more important than having a yard, it turns out. Which is why economists call these "positional goods" -- goods whose worth is deeply tied into their position vis-a-vis your direct "competitors" (which is to say neighbors, friends, etc.).
On the other hand, not all goods are positional. Some make us happy simply because they make us happy...
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
This is what happens when people try to use the external to satisfy the internal needs.
I also think the questions were poorly framed. How about:
Would you take less pay to have a happier home, or would you take more money and a few more problems at home?
If America doesn’t turn around soon and put the intangibles - faith in God, and respect for the unalienable rights to life and liberty - ahead of the material, she will soon lose both.
I know that's probably true, but I've tried poor...I wouldn't mind trying rich and then deciding. If I didn't like it, it wouldn't be too difficult to become poor again. It's going the other way that proves a little difficult.
A world in which you made $50,000, but taxes were only 10% or a world in which you made $100,000, but the government (city, state and fed) takes 60% of it...
Yes, but the capitalist consumption economy is predicated on making people UNHAPPY. If you are content, you dont need stuff. If you dont need stuff, sales decline and the economy suffers. Advertisements are focused on making you feel bad about how you look, feel, live, etc.
There is an outstanding book I was given by a Jesuit Priest called “Living Christ in a Consumer Society” that really changed the way I viewed consumption and how capitalist/consumer culture functions. It essentially calls consumerism idol worship and makes a strong case.
Makes you wonder if the message to “go shopping” was the right one coming from our supposedly very pious POTUS after 9/11 doesnt it?
Materialism is another by-product of the 1960s generation.....the most self-centered, demanding, spoiled rotten group of people to ever exist in a capitalist society.
It is this generation that brought us “white guilt”, yuppies (driving BMWs), the millenium bug hoax, the stock market bubble of 2000, the subprime mortgage mess, Roe v Wade, etc -—— I’m sure I left much out.
Once this generation enters retirement, they will be the most ungrateful, demanding bunch of seniors the world has ever seen.
The only good thing is that this planet will be rid of them in another 30 years or so.
PS: If you are considered a baby-boomer and are offended by the above, too bad. It was your generation that brought us lawsuits over being “offended”.
>> Material possessions is no guide to judging how happy a person is with life.
All my life I have been pretty much content with what I have at the moment (in terms of “stuff”). As one example, I drive a ten-plus-year-old car with 150,000 miles on it, not because I have to but because I don’t *need* a new one.
To be fair, I have always been able to work and earn enough to support myself and my wife (no kids). There have been times in my life when I have had to be careful, but I have never done without the basics.
No brag, just fact; I am thankful I’m wired that way, and I consider it a blessing from God.
I’m with you, Professor - I’ve done the poor bit, and it’s not a happy state. The rich bit still eludes me, but things are a lot better than they used to be ... it’s nice to have a house even though after a few years the house seems somewhat small.
I can’t adopt this way of thinking. I still believe that the winner is the one that dies with the most chips.
Finishes with:
“But there’s an easy solution. Stop. Pull out of the competition. Seriously ask whether you want to continue trading away your time for your stuff. And that requires ignoring what your neighbors have. It requires shutting your eyes against short-term incentives and trying to remember what actually makes you happy, what you tend to remember when each year closes out. It requires keeping a little of that Thanksgiving litany in mind, even after the meal is forgotten and marshmallows and yams again seem an absurd combination.
Ezra Klein is a staff writer at the American Prospect. He blogs at EzraKlein.com.”
Interesting overall—this Ezra Klein being who he is—there has to be some shades of the usual amerikka-hating sentiment in there (he has to put in the part about the wonderful French, for instance), and of course insinuate that we are all greedy, materialistic capitalists. The “shoot my neighbor’s cow” attitudes that this survey supposedly revealed are disturbing if true and the ritualistic contempt for the “keeping up with the Jonses’” attitude is sounding hoary after fifty years. Despite the title, he does not go so far as to endorse the briefly fashionable “living simply” fad that swept over the well-to-do recently.
The gist of the article is to remember what’s really important. Big houses and fancy “stuff” aren’t going to mean a lot on one’s deathbed.
The problem is the feminist movement.
Not to forget that recent (UN-commissioned?) study that tried to show that the dirt-poor countries led that mysterious scale of national happiness.
Yeah, right.
Money solves a few problems, but it doesn’t take much to accomplish that. Internal happiness is pretty cheap. You’ve probably got it or you don’t and lots of money sure as hell won’t buy it. Look at lottery winners....
Beat my brains out simply because I am jealous of what others have or might get . . . a very sad state of affairs that does not plague me.
Carolyn
and the rats keep winning the rat race... but i'm not gonna let it bother me tonight.
We have many, many friends who make a lot more than we do, are up to their eyeballs in bills, cannot seem to stop buying things they really don’t need, and work so hard they hardly have time to do anything. They have large and expensive houses they hardly live in, and more gadgets than they have time to figure out. I have long suspected that a great deal of their need to keep buying and buying is coming from their other friends who have the same crazy outlook. I hope they are happy in their new Land Rovers, working all weekend, because we are headed up to Paso Robles to drink some of America’s best Zinfandel.
So what is new here? Materialism is not a recent phenomena. It’s part of the human condition. Some are affected more than others. So it has been always.
To say that materialism started in the ‘60’s or with such-and-such a generation is silly. It has always been with us, just like people who denounce it and claim that it is the rot at the heart of our civilisation.
In my opinion, the thing to avoid is not materialism but greed and envy.
But the world where the gov’t only took 10% of your income would be one where the schools didn’t work, the roads would be full of potholes, the military would be underfunded...hey, wait a minute!!
Adam Gadahn (Azzam the American) is expert on this.
Some very good points here.
Rich = able to buy lots of things (mostly with credit)
Wealthy = Live as you wish, buy what you want when you want.
If you have ‘simple’ tastes, are content with what you have, then you just may be “wealthy”.
I have found that the less people watch TV, the happier they seem to be. YMMV.
You are right that there’s nothing new here. Conspicuous consumption was the rage in early Renaissance Italy and originated with all the new wealth generated by trade.
Is that book “Following Christ in a Consumer Society” by John Kavanaugh?
I always had it in my head as “living”, but perhaps you are correct. Gotta go to the bookshelf and check.
Yup, that is the correct. title. My mistake, but very glad you pointed it out. What is your take on it?
Pseudo choice. What everybody is aiming for is retirement. Once retired many attempt to keep up their level of consumption, but some realize they aren't in that game anymore and never were really. The real choices are made early and lock most people into a life up to and even past retirement.
Not a fan of the Society of Jesuits Einigkeit_REich_Freiheit.
For me it isn’t Idol Worship to participate in the economy, when that participation leads to excessive debt and the destruction of the Family and Right Relations with God, then they have crossed the line into Self Deception.
“If I buy this then my family will be happy and I will feel contented” is a lie.
It all comes down to what I tell my kids when they are demanding something: “Things don’t make you happy. People make you happy.” Of course an occasional trip to the tropics, with or without other people, doesn’t hurt.
>> And before that, even. Said the wise king Solomon (Ecclesiastes 2: 4-11):
“4 I made my works great, I built myself houses, and planted myself vineyards. 5 I made myself gardens and orchards, and I planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. 6 I made myself water pools from which to water the growing trees of the grove. 7 I acquired male and female servants, and had servants born in my house.
Yes, I had greater possessions of herds and flocks than all who were in Jerusalem before me. 8 I also gathered for myself silver and gold and the special treasures of kings and of the provinces. I acquired male and female singers, the delights of the sons of men, and musical instruments of all kinds.
9 So I became great and excelled more than all who were before me in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me. 10 Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure, For my heart rejoiced in all my labor; And this was my reward from all my labor.
11 Then I looked on all the works that my hands had done And on the labor in which I had toiled; And indeed all was vanity and grasping for the wind. There was no profit under the sun.”
True to a point. Inherent human restlessness and yearning is the engine that drives capitalist economies. But do you really prefer the alternative? Wanting self-interest is the natural human state. Consumerism can get out of hand, but ideologies and regimes that deny the realities of human want, or denigrate it, have lead to large scale misery.
These anti-consumer, anti-materiealism articles are always just s a thinly veiled call for more goobermint interference in the economy and to be 'more like the French'....
But as Americans, we just aren't as happy with sitting around smelly and drunk talking to smelly and drunk Frenchmen as smelly and drunk Frenchmen are.
Well said.
I don’t know about other people but I’ve tried poor and I’ve tried well-off and as far as I’m concerned, happiness is a lot easier when you are well-off.
Possessing Money,does not bring happiness.
I’ve had millionaires — literally - cry on my shoulder.
However — if one is basically a contented person inwardly — money can be a blessing.
If one has shelter, food, clothing, and health, one is wealthy — even from a material point of view.
Having more is “icing on the cake” as they say.
Money is not a good gage of wealth or even class for that matter.
There are people with little money that are wealthy and high class too.
HEAR HEAR!
And that is a great pic of Jena. Makes me jealous!! ;-)
TYPO... gauge NOT gage.
When I retire, it will be to farm the land we live on. I already raise beef and hogs in alternate years, chickens for eggs and meat, and goats for milk & cheese. We have a small vegetable garden that grows about 60% of what we eat. If I had more time I could improve on all of that. It’s something I really enjoy, and could see myself spending the rest of my life doing it.
Yep - thanks! ...one of my best days of my life :-)
I can imagine. Maybe, I better not though.
It’s going the other way that proves a little difficult.
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True, but psychologically it is a lot harder going from rich to poor than going the other way. When I look at what I had long ago it seems like abject poverty but I was happy because I was advancing. Now I have much more but I have to keep reminding myself that I am not really poor because I have less money to spend than I had fifteen years ago.
Big houses and fancy “stuff” aren’t going to mean a lot on one’s deathbed.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
One fellow I used to know was fond of asking people, “have you ever seen a hearse witha U-Haul trailer behind it?”
Awesome Reply ...
My kids have grown up and gone, so did the wife.
Everything I own now, fits in my car. I can be out of where ever I am in 20 minutes flat. A small TV, a laptop, clothes, some kitchen stuff, a cooler, blankets and a pillow. I do not own a tie (dog collar).
My job is searching the Internet (data mining). I work where and when I want (including cruise ships). I am thinking of living on cruise ships and sailing around the world a couple of times. I have arrays of computer servers in St. Louis, Kostroma Russia and Thiruvananthapuram India. I make twice as much as I spend.
My 21 year old girlfriend is a Romanian Gypsy who I met selling flowers on the Las Vegas Strip (I am 45, lol). She is street smart, and can survive anywhere. She has no desire to own a house or a car.
My kids, who are the same age as my girlfriend (so they get along great!), travel with me from time to time, and have a great time.
I used to have the beautiful home in Fairfax, Virginia and the 9 to 5 consulting job, white picket fences late model cars and basement/garage full of stuff. I will never mow a lawn, trim a hedge or shovel a driveway again.
I couldn’t be happier.
True. I can remember telling myself: "If I could make $15,000 per year, I'd have it made!" I made that rich-poor decision a long time ago...I wouldn't be teaching if money was important. In my area of teaching (computer technology) I could make a lot more on "the outside", but I chose teaching because I like it more than money and it's been a pretty good life. (Still, I wouldn't mind being rich and still teaching. So, if any of you have too much money to be happy, I'd be happy to help you out!)
I actually got the gist as how "great" systems like the French have where you get 30 "free" vacation days. What isn't mentioned is how hard someone ELSE has to work to pay for YOUR time off. I guarantee the author of this article comes from a wealthy family and never has known true need. If he ever fell on hard times, his mommy and daddy would come riding to the rescue.
btt
I haven’t read it but thought it looked worthwhile. Searched for it on Amazon and came up with “Finding Christ etc.” as the closest match. Thanks for the recommendation.
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