To graft, to earn, to sweat but not to find happiness
Business owners the world over are much more stressed than they were a year ago, despite enjoying the fastest rate of global economic growth for four years, according to a survey. A common cause of dissatisfaction was not having enough time to spend with family or on leisure. This complaint has become familiar in the economically advanced countries. Despite better healthcare, rising incomes and work-saving devices, surveys repeatedly show people are no happier than they were in the 1950s.
Logically, this should not be the case. In the 1930s, J.M. Keynes, the renowned British economist, predicted that once the “economic problem” of satisfying basic material needs was achieved, people would not have to work so hard and would devote their spare time to trying to live well.
The implication of the breakdown between national income and happiness is that governments should look beyond policies aimed at increasing economic growth if they want to increase national wellbeing.
That means trying to find out what makes people happy beyond the obvious benefits of good health and fulfilling relationships.
Robert Frank, economics professor at Cornell University, and author of Luxury Fever, argued in a paper published last year: “If we use an increase in our incomes simply to buy bigger houses and more expensive cars, then we do not tend to end up being any happier than before. But if we use an increase in our incomes to buy more of certain inconspicuous goods such as freedom from a long commute or a stressful job then the evidence paints a very different picture.” This raises the question of why people say one thing would make them happier a shorter commute, perhaps but continue to do another by working harder to earn more for goods that do not make them feel better.
One reason is that people compare themselves with others. Extensive research has shown that if everyone is getting richer, people do not get happier they do so only if they get richer relative to their peers.
As Gore Vidal, the American novelist and essayist, observed: “Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies.”
Research bears out the importance of relative income. Presenting his most recent findings at the American Economic Association annual conference this month, Andrew Oswald, professor of economics at Warwick University in the UK, said happiness at work depends on how much you earn relative to someone else.
The form this takes is through your wage “rank” whether you are the 81st best paid in the organisation or the third. Until recently, it was assumed that what mattered was how much you earned relative to the average wage in the company: if your salary was higher, you were happy.
“If happiness is influenced in this way, it makes sense why happiness scores don't rise because there is only so much rank to go round,” he said.
“That is bad news for politicians who believe that economic growth can buy happiness. The supply of rank is in fixed supply.”
The implication is that status matters to people but striving for it involves constant work and stress with results that will gratify only a few. A luxury car can be a status symbol only if few people can afford it. When incomes rise and more people can afford to buy the car, others have to work harder to afford an even fancier model. “This mechanism is a driving force behind economic growth but at the same time, it constantly undermines the utility gains it creates,” says Mathias Binswanger, a Swiss-based professor of economics.
And by concentrating on growth figures, policy makers fail to notice problems such as the rise in depression. Ed Diener and Martin Seligman, two prominent US-based psychology professors, wrote last year that “mental illness, particularly depression, has increased substantially over the same period that economic statistics have risen substantially.
“Decreasing the suffering and increasing the well-being of people with mental disorders should be a priority of any society that takes well-being seriously.”
Lord Layard, professor of economics at the London School of Economics and author of a forthcoming book on happiness, agrees. One in six people in the UK is thought to suffer from some form of mental illness, yet the spending on treatment is tiny compared with that on other health problems.
“We know that a course of cognitive behavioural therapy can alleviate depression in 60 per cent of cases and costs ￡1,000 [�1,440, $1,900],” he said. “The issue is that spending ￡1,000 on relieving someone's depression so they benefit in terms of happiness, might be better spent than ￡1,000 on faster trains.”
幸福的相对论
一项调查显示，尽管4年来全球经济以最快速度增长，但世界各地企业主觉得，现在的压力要比一年前大得多。不满意的原因通常是由于没有足够的时间陪伴家庭，或是闲暇时刻不多。这种抱怨开始在经济发达国家变得平常。虽然人们得到了更好的医疗保健、更高收入和更省力的机器，但调查结果一再显示，人们没有50年代时开心。
按理，情况不应该是这样。在30年代，著名的英国经济学家J?M?凯恩斯(J.M. Keynes)预言，一旦满足基本物质需求的“经济问题”得到解决，人们就不用那么辛苦工作，而把空余时间都花在如何提高生活品质上。
然而国民收入与幸福之间的脱钩暗示着，如果政府想要使人民更安乐，那他们就不该把目光仅仅盯住以促进经济增长为目的的政策。
这也就意味着，除了健康、友谊等明显的原因外，我们要找到是什么使人们觉得幸福。
著有《奢侈病》(Luxury Fever)一书的美国康奈尔大学(Cornell University)经济学教授罗伯特?弗兰克(Robert Frank)在去年发表的一篇论文中写道：“如果我们只是将收入增长的部分用来购买更大的房子或更贵的汽车，那么最终我们不会觉得比以前更幸福。但设若我们将这部分钱花在肯定是更不起眼的东西上，如减轻上下班奔波之苦，或者减轻上班的压力，那结果将是迥然相异的。”这提出了一个问题：为什么人们会说，缩短上下班时间会使他们更加幸福，但同时，人们为什么更努力工作，去挣那些不会使他们开心的东西。
其中的一个原因在于，人总是拿自己和别人比。广泛的研究表明，如果人人都在变富，那我们的幸福感不会增加，我们只有在与我们的伙伴相比更富有时，才会觉得幸福。
正如美国小说家、散文作家戈尔?维达(Gore Vidal)所观察到的：“每当我的朋友有成就时，我们的友谊就会消失得多一些。”
经济学家的研究证实了比较收入的重要性。在本月举行的美国经济学协会(American Economic Association)年会上，英国华威大学(Warwick University)的经济学教授安德鲁?奥斯瓦德(Andrew Oswald)展示了他最新的一项发现。他认为，工作中的幸福感取决于你和其他人相比挣多少钱。
这里是看你的工资“等级”，看你的薪水在机构中是排81名还是第3名。直到不久前，人们还是假设，问题的关键在于，相比于公司的平均工资，你挣多少钱。如果你的薪水超过平均工资，那么你就会觉得幸福。
“如果这会影响幸福感的话，那就能解释为什么幸福指数不上升，因为总共就只有这么些等级，”他说道。
“这对政治家来说是个坏消息，他们相信经济增长可以买到幸福。而等级的供应其实是固定的。”
这意味着，地位对人很重要，但谋求地位往往免不了持久的工作和压力，而结果又只能使一部分人得偿所愿。一辆豪华轿车只有在少数人才买得起的情况下，才是身份的象征。当人们的收入在增加、越来越的人买得起轿车的时候，其他人只能更拼命地工作，去买一款更炫眼的车。一位瑞士经济学家马歇斯?本斯瓦格(Mathias Binswanger) 认为：“这种机制是推动经济增长的动力，但与此同时，它也在不断地破坏它所创造的最大幸福。”
而且，由于政策制定者把注意力集中在了经济数据的增长上，他们未能注意到诸如抑郁情绪上升等问题。两位著名的美国心理学家埃德?迪安纳(Ed Diener)与马丁?塞利格曼( Martin Seligman)教授去年写道：“在经济统计数据显著上升的时期，心理疾病尤其是抑郁症，也在同步显著上升。”
“对任何一个注重人民福利的社会来说，减轻精神病患者的痛苦并令他们更安康，是社会的首要任务。”
对此，伦敦政治经济学院(LSE)的经济学教授莱亚德勋爵 (Lord Layard)表示同意。他的一本有关幸福的著作即将出版。在英国，每6个人中就有1个被认为患有一定程度的精神疾病，然而比起花在其它健康问题上的钱来说，用在这方面的治疗费只是杯水车薪。
“我们知道，在60％的抑郁症病例中，一次认知行为治疗就可以减轻抑郁，其花费为1000英镑（合1900美元），”他说，“问题是，花1000英镑使一个人摆脱抑郁，使他/她更幸福，或许要胜过花1000英镑造更快的火车。”
