Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future by Robert B. Reich Page B
Authors: Robert B. Reich
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not wealth,” noted John Ellsworth, Jr., in
The North American Review
of October 1932, in the depths of the Great Depression.
Years ago, University of Illinois psychologist Ed Diener surveyed winners of state lotteries and some of the richest Americans (identified by
Forbes
as among the wealthiest one hundred). They expressed only slightly greater happiness than did the average American, and much of their happiness proved to be temporary. People in other countries and cultures are much the same.University of Michigan researcher Ronald Inglehart examined 256,000 people in seventeen different nations and found barely any connection between income and happiness, above a subsistence level. It turns out that what money buys has rapidly diminishing emotional returns. Once we’ve enjoyed something, the next experience of it is not quite as wonderful, and the third might even be humdrum. As long as we’re not destitute, happinessis less about getting what we want than about appreciating what we already have.
Much of what people want can’t be bought anyway.In 1943, behavioral scientist Abraham Maslow wrote “A Theory of Human Motivation,” a paper in which he posited a hierarchy of human needs. At the bottom are food, shelter, sex, and sleep (of which the first two are typically purchased, although markets also exist for the latter two). Next come safety and security (which we normally purchase as well, typically through locks on the doors and taxes that pay for police officers and a system of criminal justice). If we lack any of these basics, we’re forced to spend most of our time trying to remedy what’s missing. But once these fundamental needs are met, according to Maslow, our higher needs cannot be satisfied in the market—indeed, the very act of trying to purchase them robs them of their emotional sustenance. They include “belonging needs,” such as love, acceptance, and affiliation, and “esteem needs,” by which he meant self-respect, social status, and the approval of others. At the top of Maslow’s pyramid are “self-actualization” needs—our yearning to find meaning in our lives and to express ourselves.
By some measures, then, one could argue that with less paid work and less money to spend, people could—at least theoretically—enjoy their simpler lives.Before the Great Recession, many Americans were trying to cope with declining hourly wages by working more hours and sleeping less—by some estimates an average of one or two fewer hours each night than in the 1960s. (That deprivation created an entirely new industry.In 2007, Americans spent a whopping $23.9 billion on sleep-related products and services—everything from white-noise machines and special sleep-inducing mattresses to drugs for insomnia. That was more than double what we spent on sleep a decade before, according to Marketdata Enterprises, a research firm in Tampa, Florida.)
In mid-2009, the
Archives of General Psychiatry
released a study showing that one in ten Americans take antidepressants within the course of a year, making antidepressants the most prescribed medication in the nation, and by extension, in history. The number of Americans on antidepressants doubled between 1997 and 2007, even as the stock market and home values soared. Antidepressants surely help millions of people cope with stressful lives, but some of the stresses of that era came from trying to earn enough to afford everything that was considered the hallmark of a successful life.
The harder we worked to buy these things, the less time and energy we had to enjoy what we bought. American culture sent an increasingly mixed message: Work like mad but enjoy life to the fullest. Doing both proved impossible. Sociologist Daniel Bell identified this cultural contradiction years ago, but it became more pronounced in the years preceding the Great Recession. The Protestant virtues of hard work and deferred gratification were at increasing odds with a market that
The North American Review
of October 1932, in the depths of the Great Depression.
Years ago, University of Illinois psychologist Ed Diener surveyed winners of state lotteries and some of the richest Americans (identified by
Forbes
as among the wealthiest one hundred). They expressed only slightly greater happiness than did the average American, and much of their happiness proved to be temporary. People in other countries and cultures are much the same.University of Michigan researcher Ronald Inglehart examined 256,000 people in seventeen different nations and found barely any connection between income and happiness, above a subsistence level. It turns out that what money buys has rapidly diminishing emotional returns. Once we’ve enjoyed something, the next experience of it is not quite as wonderful, and the third might even be humdrum. As long as we’re not destitute, happinessis less about getting what we want than about appreciating what we already have.
Much of what people want can’t be bought anyway.In 1943, behavioral scientist Abraham Maslow wrote “A Theory of Human Motivation,” a paper in which he posited a hierarchy of human needs. At the bottom are food, shelter, sex, and sleep (of which the first two are typically purchased, although markets also exist for the latter two). Next come safety and security (which we normally purchase as well, typically through locks on the doors and taxes that pay for police officers and a system of criminal justice). If we lack any of these basics, we’re forced to spend most of our time trying to remedy what’s missing. But once these fundamental needs are met, according to Maslow, our higher needs cannot be satisfied in the market—indeed, the very act of trying to purchase them robs them of their emotional sustenance. They include “belonging needs,” such as love, acceptance, and affiliation, and “esteem needs,” by which he meant self-respect, social status, and the approval of others. At the top of Maslow’s pyramid are “self-actualization” needs—our yearning to find meaning in our lives and to express ourselves.
By some measures, then, one could argue that with less paid work and less money to spend, people could—at least theoretically—enjoy their simpler lives.Before the Great Recession, many Americans were trying to cope with declining hourly wages by working more hours and sleeping less—by some estimates an average of one or two fewer hours each night than in the 1960s. (That deprivation created an entirely new industry.In 2007, Americans spent a whopping $23.9 billion on sleep-related products and services—everything from white-noise machines and special sleep-inducing mattresses to drugs for insomnia. That was more than double what we spent on sleep a decade before, according to Marketdata Enterprises, a research firm in Tampa, Florida.)
In mid-2009, the
Archives of General Psychiatry
released a study showing that one in ten Americans take antidepressants within the course of a year, making antidepressants the most prescribed medication in the nation, and by extension, in history. The number of Americans on antidepressants doubled between 1997 and 2007, even as the stock market and home values soared. Antidepressants surely help millions of people cope with stressful lives, but some of the stresses of that era came from trying to earn enough to afford everything that was considered the hallmark of a successful life.
The harder we worked to buy these things, the less time and energy we had to enjoy what we bought. American culture sent an increasingly mixed message: Work like mad but enjoy life to the fullest. Doing both proved impossible. Sociologist Daniel Bell identified this cultural contradiction years ago, but it became more pronounced in the years preceding the Great Recession. The Protestant virtues of hard work and deferred gratification were at increasing odds with a market that
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