than they had been at the end of World War II.
Adaptation would explain this trend. Easterlin suggested another complementary dynamic: happiness may not depend on our absolute level of well-being but on how it compares with the well-being of those around us. We feel happy when we are better off than our neighbors.
Other economists since then have found similar examples of the relative nature of happiness. People feel less happy when their neighbors have more money. Roughly speaking, losing $1,000 produces the same sort of dissatisfaction as seeing a neighbor gain $1,000. Suicide rates are higher than average in areas where there is a large gap between the highest earners and average people. Many economists have accepted the notion that money might buy enduring happiness for very poor people, for whom a rise in income could drastically change their living conditions. But beyond a certain satiation threshold it would be pointless to strive for more. The rich may be happier than the poor. But getting richer wouldn’t make them happier, at least not for long, because they would soon adapt to their new life one rung up the income ladder and start comparing themselves with richer people.
Adaptation could be a useful trait. Economists Gary Becker and Luis Rayo argue that the ephemeral, context-dependent nature of happiness makes sense in evolutionary terms. If progress boosts our happiness only briefly, we will be motivated to constantly improve. The desire to keep up with the neighbors would work in much the same way. The relentless drive to improve would increase our chances of survival. As Adam Smith put it 250 years ago, the idea that we can achieve happiness amounts to a “deception, which rouses and keeps in continual motion the industry of mankind.”
But surely we would have caught onto the con by now? If Easterlin was right, economic growth would be a glum proposition. If everybody’s income rose equally, people’s relative position wouldn’t change. If growth benefited some more than others, the increase in happiness among the winners would balance out the loss of happiness among the losers in a zero-sum game. Adaptation proposes a world with even less hope, running pointlessly on our treadmill of happiness, rooted to the same place. The founding fathers of the United States included the pursuit of happiness as one of the inalienable rights they thought its citizens should have. But if we truly adapt to everything, what point is there in striving to be happy?
Some psychologists have even suggested happiness is hardwired, determined not by changes in our environment but by our individual genetic makeup. And there seems to be some evidence that our genes do play a part. The Minnesota Twin Registry has followed thousands of twins born between 1936 and 1955. Researchers have found that changes in happiness are very highly correlated among identical twins, who share all their genetic material. Regardless of whether they grew up together or apart, the happiness of one twin is more closely related to that of the other than to his own level of education or his wealth. By contrast, the correlation disappears for fraternal twins—who come from two different eggs.
But if our happiness is in our genes, we will have to answer a question deeper than Bobby Kennedy’s: what is the point of striving for anything if nothing will improve our sense of well-being? That would turn economics on its head. A few years ago, Easterlin wrote an essay titled “Feeding the Illusion of Growth and Happiness” in which he starkly laid out the conclusion of a lifetime of happiness studies: they “undermine the view that a focus on economic growth is in the best interests of society.” In fact, the proposition that we are on a treadmill of happiness undermines the belief that society can improve at all.
THE AMERICAN TRADE-OFF
But we shouldn’t despair just yet. The treadmill of happiness is a metaphor too far. And Easterlin overstates his
Adaptation would explain this trend. Easterlin suggested another complementary dynamic: happiness may not depend on our absolute level of well-being but on how it compares with the well-being of those around us. We feel happy when we are better off than our neighbors.
Other economists since then have found similar examples of the relative nature of happiness. People feel less happy when their neighbors have more money. Roughly speaking, losing $1,000 produces the same sort of dissatisfaction as seeing a neighbor gain $1,000. Suicide rates are higher than average in areas where there is a large gap between the highest earners and average people. Many economists have accepted the notion that money might buy enduring happiness for very poor people, for whom a rise in income could drastically change their living conditions. But beyond a certain satiation threshold it would be pointless to strive for more. The rich may be happier than the poor. But getting richer wouldn’t make them happier, at least not for long, because they would soon adapt to their new life one rung up the income ladder and start comparing themselves with richer people.
Adaptation could be a useful trait. Economists Gary Becker and Luis Rayo argue that the ephemeral, context-dependent nature of happiness makes sense in evolutionary terms. If progress boosts our happiness only briefly, we will be motivated to constantly improve. The desire to keep up with the neighbors would work in much the same way. The relentless drive to improve would increase our chances of survival. As Adam Smith put it 250 years ago, the idea that we can achieve happiness amounts to a “deception, which rouses and keeps in continual motion the industry of mankind.”
But surely we would have caught onto the con by now? If Easterlin was right, economic growth would be a glum proposition. If everybody’s income rose equally, people’s relative position wouldn’t change. If growth benefited some more than others, the increase in happiness among the winners would balance out the loss of happiness among the losers in a zero-sum game. Adaptation proposes a world with even less hope, running pointlessly on our treadmill of happiness, rooted to the same place. The founding fathers of the United States included the pursuit of happiness as one of the inalienable rights they thought its citizens should have. But if we truly adapt to everything, what point is there in striving to be happy?
Some psychologists have even suggested happiness is hardwired, determined not by changes in our environment but by our individual genetic makeup. And there seems to be some evidence that our genes do play a part. The Minnesota Twin Registry has followed thousands of twins born between 1936 and 1955. Researchers have found that changes in happiness are very highly correlated among identical twins, who share all their genetic material. Regardless of whether they grew up together or apart, the happiness of one twin is more closely related to that of the other than to his own level of education or his wealth. By contrast, the correlation disappears for fraternal twins—who come from two different eggs.
But if our happiness is in our genes, we will have to answer a question deeper than Bobby Kennedy’s: what is the point of striving for anything if nothing will improve our sense of well-being? That would turn economics on its head. A few years ago, Easterlin wrote an essay titled “Feeding the Illusion of Growth and Happiness” in which he starkly laid out the conclusion of a lifetime of happiness studies: they “undermine the view that a focus on economic growth is in the best interests of society.” In fact, the proposition that we are on a treadmill of happiness undermines the belief that society can improve at all.
THE AMERICAN TRADE-OFF
But we shouldn’t despair just yet. The treadmill of happiness is a metaphor too far. And Easterlin overstates his
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