• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 1254 0

that is at all times in his power.”1 If he attains wealth, “he will find [it] to be in no respect preferable to that humble security and contentment which he had abandoned for it.” Power and riches are high-maintenance machines “contrived to produce a few trifling conveniences to the body.” The machines “must be kept in order with the most anxious attention, and…in spite of all our care are ready every moment to burst into pieces, and to crush in their ruins their unfortunate possessor…. They leave him always as much, and sometimes more exposed than before, to anxiety, to fear, and to sorrow; to diseases, to danger, and to death.” Of those without wealth Smith writes: “In what constitutes the real happiness of human life, they are in no respect inferior to those who would seem so much above them. In ease of body and peace of mind, all the different ranks of life are nearly upon a level, and the beggar, who suns himself by the side of the highway, possesses that security which kings are fighting for.”

The fact that the beggar is sunning himself tells us that we are to think of Diogenes, who is almost always pictured in recline, and who answered Alexander the Great’s offer of any favor with the request that the young conqueror get out of his sun. And Alexander did wish he had “the security” of Diogenes, as Smith would say two thousand years later. But what if you are not Diogenes but a person with a modest home and three kids and are in danger of losing your job? Is that really just as conducive to happiness as is wealth? Shakespeare was always mentioning the stress and anxiety of being rich and powerful, but he has to work hard to convince the rest of us, and perhaps himself, too. In his plays, kings sigh that they are under so much pressure that they cannot get any sleep and that they envy their poorest subjects for this reason. But the rest of his characters are sure harried by their own problems. One of the things people want money for is so they can worry less. It seems right to me: what could be worse than insecurity about paying rent, maintaining health insurance, and paying down debt? But for decades now, economists and sociologists have been finding that money does not reduce worry. A 1976 study of worry by Frank M. Andrews and Stephen B. Withey found that, above the poverty line, “[t]here are virtually no differences associated with socioeconomic status.”2 Researchers have looked at the issue in a number of ways and yet find it very difficult to confirm the common assumption that wealth helps to cut down on worry. Another study, in 1981, showed that people with less money and less education worry about their health and income, whereas those with more money and more education worry about their spouses and children.3 Alas, this seems right, too. If you are up all night worrying about what your son is doing, who can tell you that worrying over the mortgage is worse? We can worry about two things at once, but researchers keep finding that the general amount that worry impinges on one’s life is not in any kind of direct relationship with how much money you have. It suggests that above poverty level, worry is best approached through wisdom, not conditions. Money must be good for something else.

9

Happily Ever After

Money pays for a lot of surveys conceived to discover the results of American material bounty—that is, money. What the studies show has struck many people as profoundly paradoxical. Since World War II, our average standard of living has gone up enormously: a chart for average household luxuries escalates like a stairway to heaven. A lot of families have two cars, a washer-dryer, several televisions, telephones, refrigerators, vacations, new clothes, and, occasionally, new furniture. Meanwhile, a chart showing happiness flatlines or even declines. Asked the same questions that had been asked Americans in the 1950s, people in the 2000s report themselves to be no happier. The paradoxical ratio has been confirmed by a great variety of research. Political scientist Robert E. Lane has provided us with an