{"id":2754,"date":"2008-04-16T10:12:22","date_gmt":"2008-04-16T05:57:57","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-11-28T12:03:38","modified_gmt":"2011-11-28T06:03:38","slug":"affluence-is-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/thetechnium\/affluence-is-go\/","title":{"rendered":"Affluence is Good"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[Translations: <a href=\"http:\/\/memo7.sblo.jp\/article\/17482223.html\">Japanese<\/a>]<\/p>\n<p>\nFor the past 30 years the conventional wisdom has been that once a person achieves a minimal standard of living, more money does not bring more happiness. If you live below a certain income threshold, increased money makes a difference, but after that, it doesn&#8217;t buy happiness. That was the conclusion of a now-classic study by Richard Easterlin in 1974.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nHowever a recent paper disputes that conclusion and shows that worldwide, afflluence brings increased satisfaction. The New York Times produced a fine graph, along with a good article, &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2008\/04\/16\/business\/16leonhardt.html?_r=1&amp;ref=todayspaper&amp;oref=slogin\">Maybe Money Does Buy Happiness After All<\/a>,&#8221; illustrating this new thesis.&#160; Richard Easterlin would like to see better data for individual countries over time, but it does seem like affluence breeds satisfaction.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/kk.org\/thetechnium\/Affluencehappiness.jpg\" height=\"309\" width=\"450\" border=\"0\" align=\"middle\" hspace=\"4\" vspace=\"4\" alt=\"Affluencehappiness\" \/>\n<\/p>\n<p>\nMy own interpretation of this research is that what money brings is increased choices, rather than merely increased stuff (although more stuff comes with the territory). We don&#8217;t find happiness in more gadgets and experiences. We do find happiness in having some control of our time and work, a chance for real leisure, in the escape from the uncertainties of war, poverty, and corruption, and in a chance to pursue individual freedoms &#8212; all of which come with increased affluence.\n<\/p>\n<p>\nAnd as far as I can tell, while affluence has many costs, the more affluence for everyone the better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[Translations: Japanese] For the past 30 years the conventional wisdom has been that once a person achieves a minimal standard of living, more money does not bring more happiness. If you live below a certain income threshold, increased money makes &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/thetechnium\/affluence-is-go\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"0","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/thetechnium\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2754"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/thetechnium\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/thetechnium\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/thetechnium\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/thetechnium\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2754"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/thetechnium\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2754\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/thetechnium\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/thetechnium\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tkdev.kk.org\/thetechnium\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}