Economic

The British have long been caricatured as a miserable bunch. But now, it seems, we are officially unhappy.

A variety of recent surveys claim that society is becoming less happy than in the past. In February 2003, Lord Richard Layard, co-director of the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics, gave a series of high-profile lectures on the subject. The UK government is now considering how to formulate policy around social happiness, after holding a special seminar on 'life satisfaction' in late 2002.

The ongoing discussion about our unhappy society is helping to create a new consensus. It is argued that many economic aspects of capitalism that were once presumed to cause happiness - more money, consumption and economic growth - do not. By contrast, it is suggested, happiness comes from non-economic factors, such as friendships, marriage and leisure activities.

Furthermore, economists and psychologists have developed theories implying that there is something intrinsic to modern capitalism that actively causes unhappiness. We are unhappily 'addicted' to money and spending - to use the fashionable expression, we are trapped on a 'hedonic treadmill'. We are also said to be 'polluting' others psychologically and causing their unhappiness when we consume more.

A growing conclusion is that society should practise a form of self-restraint: in order to be happy, we should deliberately rein in our aspirations for more money. Society should try to limit its economic growth, to avoid its members polluting others in their quest for more consumption. The fact that the government is seriously considering how to create policies around these ideas suggests the need for a critical analysis of this 'happiness' discussion. How much is it an accurate, objective assessment of the society we live in today?

Britain in 2003 certainly exudes a general feeling of discontentment. There is a popular notion that life is increasingly stressful and superficial, lacking a clear sense of direction and meaning. This ill-defined discontentment, however, is related to broader social and political trends.

Commentators tend to exaggerate the notion of unhappiness, almost believing that society is now permanently miserable. And most confusing of all, they try to locate the causes of discontent in economic factors.

Economists, psychologists and others now seem to be working overtime to imply a link between economic aspects of life and social unhappiness. To elaborate their theories, virtually all commentators in this debate draw upon happiness research - surveys that ask people to rate how happy they feel. They are keen to point out that average happiness levels have not increased in Britain over the past few decades. On average, people have tended to say they are quite happy or thereabouts. Our happiness, it is said, is stagnating.

These static average happiness levels are then correlated with something outside the research: the reality of economic progress and the fact that society on average has become richer. It is then suggested that more money does not make us happier.

In a further attempt to imply a link between economic factors and unhappiness, psychological theories are drawn upon. Britain on the Couch, the influential mid-1990s book by psychologist Oliver James, subtitled 'Why are we unhappier than we were in the 1950s - despite being richer'. James argued that our aspirations for more and more wealth essentially make us more discontented. Capitalism encourages people to earn and spend more and compete. Individuals become trapped on a 'hedonic treadmill' not of their own making - a never-ending pressure to earn and spend more and 'keep up with the Joneses'. http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/00000006DDBD.htm