Why is Gregg Easterbrook So Unhappy?

Gregg Easterbrook is in a tizzy over my review of his book in yesterday's Washington Post. He petulantly refuses to link to my piece, though.

This isn't too surprising since it would help readers see through his comedic frustration over the fact that one of my critiques allegedly falls into that hoary--and frustrating, I know, having been on the receiving end of many of them myself--gripe that a book or article isn't about something other than what it was intended to be about. Here's what Easterbrook says:

The Post reviewer intones that my book's "most serious lack" is that "when assessing the prospects for the human weal, it is as important to wonder why we are rich as it is to wonder why we aren't happy." The reviewer complains that the economic mechanisms Western nations use to produce material abundance should have been stressed. Western economic theory was not stressed because--brace yourself--the book is about something else. How the Western system produces high standards of living would be a plenty interesting topic for, let's say, a book whose subject is how the Western system produces high standards of living. The Progress Paradox concerns another subject, namely, why people live better all the time, yet are no happier. "'This book fails to be about a different topic'--The Washington Post." Hmm, maybe Random House can use that as a blurb.

Since he doesn't continue his quote or give a link to my piece, the reader of his blog entry wouldn't know that right before the part he quotes, I wrote:

Polls he cites attest that, in 1997, 66 percent of Americans believed the lot of the average person was getting worse. I suspect that the only way people could believe this is that they have no understanding of how and why market economies in the West deliver as they do, and why there is no reason to expect them to stop now.

They also wouldn't know I went on to write, after the quote he does use:

Being rich doesn't necessarily make you happy, but relief from physical deprivation can be a good thing in and of itself. If you had only this book as a guide, you wouldn't necessarily realize that the amazing wealth of the West was anything other than some sort of automatic miracle, cruelly denied others by fickle fate. (I don't think Easterbrook believes this, but his book doesn't stress otherwise.) Many Americans do have that attitude, and it is easy to be discomfited by a seemingly mysterious providence that could depart as swiftly as it came, or, worse, one based on evil motives, or that is actively destroying the planet -- widespread beliefs regarding modern capitalism.

What I am saying, then, is that not understanding why we are rich plays a large role in why many of us are unhappy. Thus, the sentence of mine that Easterbrook writes off as irrelevant to his topic is, I am positing, completely relevant, and sadly ignored, by his book. He may disagree with, and may be able to marshal arguments against, this contention. However, he implies that my statement took us into realms far afield from what his book was concerned with, which is not true. Not that he has given his readers a chance to check that for themselves.

Comments

[joe]

"I suspect that the only way people could believe this is that they have no understanding of how and why market economies in the West deliver as they do, and why there is no reason to expect them to stop now."

You suspect wrongly. Since the book is about how people can become less happy even as their income goes up, an awarenss that people's incomes are likely to go up (the point of your efforts to demonstrate the reliability of market economies, if I understand correctly) does not necessarily equate to a belief that those people will become happier. It is entirely reasonable to believe that people can become richer and less happy. Unless you demonstrate otherwise, there is no reason to assume that rising incomes mean greater happiness.

[Michael]

Our Narrator writes:
> Being rich doesn't necessarily make you happy, but relief from physical deprivation can be a good thing in and of itself.

I'm not sure that's true. It would seem to me that relief from physical deprivation is good only to the degree that it in fact makes the person happier.

I think there is a measurement problem here. If you ask a wealthy man "How happy are you?" he might say, "Not very happy." If you ask that same man "How happy are you, compared to how happy you would be working 14 hours a day in a rice field?" I'm guessing he would say, "Oh, very, very happy." (If necessary, we can give him a few days in the in paddy to help him make up his mind.)

"Money can't buy you happiness, but it can buy you a yacht big enough to pull up right alongside it."
-- David Lee Roth

"Money doesn't make you happy. I now have $50 million but I was just
as happy when I had $48 million."
-- Arnold Schwarzenegger

[Shannon Love]

Each of my grandparents who came of age in the 1930's in the pre-anti-biotic era lost at least one sibling to infectious diseases that today are casually treated .

My son actually got scarlet fever (runaway strep throat) last years. He turned red and began to breakout in itchy welts. We took him to the Doctor who gave him some antibiotics and two days later he was fine. His great grandmother related that when she was a child, she had scarlet fever and lost all the skin on her legs from the knees down.

The material wealth I enjoy makes me very happy indeed because I keenly appreciate the alternatives.

[Brad S]

joe - I think Brian's point (if I'm reading him correctly) is that it's a matter of perspective. Basically, our wealth as a society doesn't make us happy because we don't realize that as a society we are very wealthy. Stated another way - material things don't make us happy because we take so many material things for granted. If shown the alternative (as Michael and Shannon Love have pointed out), we may get some perspective on all the blessings, benefits, and comforts that we enjoy in our society and, indeed, we may become happier. Seneca called it "practicing death". Wise man, that Seneca...

[mobile]

I think that the converse thesis -- that unhappiness causes progress -- would make for an interesting book too. Let's raise our glasses to all of the stressed-out, rat-racing, debt-laden, $5500-handbag-coveting, tough customers out there pursuing delayed gratification and increasing our common good.

[dhex]

jason: ahh...yeah, i think i misunderstood. i'm on board with that, though i have no idea exactly what the percentage is. or whether its fixed.

there's always going to be some degree of cowardice necessary for self-preservation, as i think we see in ourselves each and every tax season. to resist these taxes, even though they be both unfair and unreasonable, results in the loss of certain government-granted privilages, like being able to walk where you want during the day. to further resist these taxes results in your being shot by men with guns who are "upholding the law" and stealing from you at the very same time.

i guess i see the only thing that society can teach you about "self-awareness" is your position in the social order, which is still made painfully clear from pretty early on. (though perhaps less so than when i was a child - i do find kids a bit weird these days in terms of how much stuff they seem to have and how well-matched their clothes are)

the tax example above is another thing which came to mind. your social status and self-awareness are both painfully clear.

dbray - i agree and disagree. some degree of material possession is most certainly a building block, especially in fundamental years. having personally run that gamut i'm not very into things so much as the potential for the choice of those things. and not having to fight every single week and work 14 hour days anymore is nice too.

i.e. the scourge of that fucking wannabe world controller barry schwartz fucktard.

[shane]

I suppose the best thing would be to run out and buy It's getting better all the time by Stephen Moore and Julian Simon.

That book would make a nice balance to this one.

[Lee Dise]

I think Jason Ligon's summary of the book sounds plausibly accurate, and if so the thesis fits a gazillion other books that might have been named, "Two Cheers for Capitalism". You know a liberal wrote the book if anything good at all is stated or implied about the free market, there's a big "yeah, but..." coming.

If you're looking for happiness, consult your shrink or consult your preacher. If you're looking for the best way to organize an economy, consult a free-market economist.

[Tom G]

Maybe people whine simply because they enjoy whining. Wasn't there an observation to that effect in "Notes from Underground," using a man with a toothache as the example?

[Stich]

Just tackle that SOB Easterbrook from behind, Brian. That'll teach him to link.

[Jason Ligon]

It seems to me that Easterbrook's book could be handled in about one paragraph:

People with rising incomes, after reaching some critical level, are no happier both because their expectations rise and because the economic achievement that had given them purpose in the past has less meaning in the present. Satisfaction on the second and higher tiers of the heirarchy of needs is more abstract and harder to come by, especially when the society you live does not force you to develop any awareness of self before your first tier needs are met.

[Highway]

I've got a few other hypotheses for why people are 'so unhappy', including wanting attention, not wanting to be left out, and one-upsmanship. There's also a sense of not wanting to make other people feel bad, so if everyone around you is saying how awful things are, most people aren't gonna argue (although I tend to). The main point is: People want to complain. It's what most people do best. Even if you can prove that things are better, even if you get them to agree to the subjective things, they'll STILL come up with a reason to complain. Are people UNHAPPIER than they were? I doubt it. They're probably at the same level of unhappiness, because that's where people like to be.

All this stuff has probably been said before, but I think this whole book and subsequent discussion is somewhat pointless. You could look at ANY point in human history, and the general feeling would be "despite all the technological progress, I'm not any happier."

[dhex]

i get the feeling that the people who write these books are equating "happiness" with a sort of quasi-mystical state of being.

has there ever been a time when people could buy a state of being? (not just the conditions of it, like an indulgence or a wife or a business and so on and so on and so on)

mr. ligon - i do have to disagree about the "awareness of self" thing. i think even american culture, as debauched and ridiculous and entertaining as it is, forces very definite awarenesses of who you are, who you're supposed to be and what you're supposed to do from a very early age. it's just there's a lot less follow-through and certainty's just about dead (i hope).

[Leo]

Seems to me that this is yet another attempt by those that don't like freedom to justify relieving us of some if it. It's for our own good; we'll be happier. I just wish that these self appointed guardians of my happiness and well being would bother to ask me first.

A second point. While some folks with rising income may not say that they are happier, try checking with people with falling incomes. My guess is that they will be unhappier. A lot. It's the Red Queeen's race. We have to run as hard as we can just to stay in place.

[Jason Ligon]

dhex,

I can only comment from my experience and from observations about the behavior of others. I don't normally go for the cult of self help, but I think there is a lot to be said for the way Steven Covey looks at life, as outlined in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

There are a number of good insights in there, one of which is in the description of the first habit - Be Proactive. He describes the proactive person in opposition to the reactive person. The proactive person says things like, "I was unable to convince the client of the benefits of X." The reactive person says, "The client was too slow to see the advantages I outlined." More than that, though, the reactive person is dependent on others for their sense of self (they react fundamentally to positive feedback from peers rather than presenting a consistent set of values that others can accept or not).

I don't think that a dependent, reactive person can be happy in their own skin. If I had to eyeball it, I would say that maybe 15% of the people I've ever met could be classified as proactive and independent. That is kind of what I was getting at.

[dbray]

old buddhist saying -" man loves the pain of the thorn in the foot " what the hell is happiness, anyway? my personal perspective is that everything looks sweet after you feel death brush your cheek, but that would be only words to one who has not lived through the experience - there is no particular state of material wealth, be it plenty or wanting, that produces happiness - that has been shown over and over again throughout our past, and reflected in all forms of creative expresion - happiness is a lifelong search... life's a mystery.... degrees of material wealth never have and never will be the mitigating factor.