The argument presented in the article is plausible, but I call it "the guy with the S65 AMG Benz admiring the guy with the Maybach" argument, i.e., the Maybach is a few hundred thousand dollars dearer than the Benz, itself a $200K car. While valid, I think it illustrates the effect of the unhappiness problem rather than the underlying cause.
I call the root of the problem The SimCity Effect.
The SimCity Effect -- as I describe it -- is essentially a real life application of the economic principle of diminishing marginal value, i.e., the more of a given good you gain, the less value you gain from each subsequent good.
I think wealthy peoples' unhappiness with life is due to the far greater decrease in value -- or utility -- they gain each time they move up the ladder than those with lesser means.
This is in turn is caused by a fundamental failure by most people to have a predetermined sense of "satisfaction" or "accomplishment" in life. This is where the SimCity analogy comes to play.
Those of you who grew up playing SimCity probably experienced this phenomenon: you start building a city, eagerly growing larger and larger, with more and better public utilities, education, etc., and your satisfaction curve probably faced an initial upward curve: all things being equal, the goal of SimCity was arguably to build the largest, cleanest, most educated, and high tech city you could manage.
Trouble is, that's a pretty vague goal: what does "large" mean? 1M people? 2M? 10M? In the absence of a clear and defined goal, and no way to "win" the game in the traditional sense, most SimCity builders suffered a very real sense of diminishing marginal value, and thus their satisfaction -- joy with the game, etc. -- decreased as well.
This is not to say that one should set finite goals beyond which we should strive no further, but rather that we should at least set a mental note alerting us to when, in our life, we have obtained our goals, so we can at least breathe a sigh of relief and say "I've done it." Anything beyond that would be a bonus and it would essentially reset our internal "utility" curve accordingly to, perhaps, begin anew. This would certainly explain serial entrepreneurs and the like.
This to me is the real problem with happiness -- or lack thereof -- at the highest echelon of society: it is not unhappiness per se, but rather a lack of satisfaction due to what can be best described as satisfaction desensitization.
I call the root of the problem The SimCity Effect.
The SimCity Effect -- as I describe it -- is essentially a real life application of the economic principle of diminishing marginal value, i.e., the more of a given good you gain, the less value you gain from each subsequent good.
I think wealthy peoples' unhappiness with life is due to the far greater decrease in value -- or utility -- they gain each time they move up the ladder than those with lesser means.
This is in turn is caused by a fundamental failure by most people to have a predetermined sense of "satisfaction" or "accomplishment" in life. This is where the SimCity analogy comes to play.
Those of you who grew up playing SimCity probably experienced this phenomenon: you start building a city, eagerly growing larger and larger, with more and better public utilities, education, etc., and your satisfaction curve probably faced an initial upward curve: all things being equal, the goal of SimCity was arguably to build the largest, cleanest, most educated, and high tech city you could manage.
Trouble is, that's a pretty vague goal: what does "large" mean? 1M people? 2M? 10M? In the absence of a clear and defined goal, and no way to "win" the game in the traditional sense, most SimCity builders suffered a very real sense of diminishing marginal value, and thus their satisfaction -- joy with the game, etc. -- decreased as well.
This is not to say that one should set finite goals beyond which we should strive no further, but rather that we should at least set a mental note alerting us to when, in our life, we have obtained our goals, so we can at least breathe a sigh of relief and say "I've done it." Anything beyond that would be a bonus and it would essentially reset our internal "utility" curve accordingly to, perhaps, begin anew. This would certainly explain serial entrepreneurs and the like.
This to me is the real problem with happiness -- or lack thereof -- at the highest echelon of society: it is not unhappiness per se, but rather a lack of satisfaction due to what can be best described as satisfaction desensitization.
Just my 2c.