From Jesus’ words on a different sort of economy, I’d like to move on to Bill McKibben’s thoughts on the same. McKibben has just released a book called Deep Economy that I’ve just begun reading and will likely be posting on in the coming days.
The gist of McKibben’s book is that there are three problems with our System as it exists.
1. It’s not sustainable
2. It’s not healthy
3. And even if it were either of these, it’s not working to make us happy
And it is this third point that he seems to focus on, at least in the initial pages. A few excerpts from the first chapter, where he is asking the question: Is more better?
In some sense, you could say that the years since WWII in America have been a loosely controlled experiment designed to answer this very question…in 1991 the average American family owned twice as many cars, drove two and a half times as far, used twenty-one times as much plastic, and traveled twenty-five times further by air than did the average family in 1951…the size of new houses has doubled since 1970, even as the average number of people in each one has shrunk…
And on McKibben goes, listing how much more Stuff we have and use and waste. He goes on to quote conservative writer Dinesh D’Souza who said that we have created not just the first middle class, but “the first mass affluent class in world history.”
To which, many of us would be inclined to think, “Well, that sounds like a good thing, right?” Maybe not.
McKibben then points out that, despite all this Stuff, we are less happy.
In 1946, the United States was the happiest country among four advanced economies; thirty years later, it was eighth among eleven advanced countries; a decade after that it ranked tenth among twenty-three nations, many of them from the third world…The percentage of respondents saying they were very happy peaked sometime in the 1950s and has slid slowly but steadily in the years since…
That’s not to say that getting richer caused these problems, only that it didn’t alleviate them. All in all, we have more stuff and less happiness. The experiment we’ve undertaken has yielded a significant, robust, and largely unexpected result.[emphasis, his]
Of course, between these quotes, he has offered much resourced material to support his claims and his approaching conclusion. That conclusion being:
The answer is interesting for what it says about human nature. Up to a certain point, none of what I’ve just said holds true. Up to a certain point, more really does equal better. [emphasis, his]…
And it wasn’t, as it turns out, just my anectdotal impression. In general, researchers report that money consistently buys happiness right up to about $10,000 per capita income, and that after that point the correlation disappears disappears.[emphasis, his]
That’s enough for now. I apologize because I’m almost certainly not doing justice to all the researched and reasoned commentary McKibben offers, but hopefully you get the idea.
His point is that being desperately poor and unable to feed yourself is miserable. But once you’ve reached that $10,000 annual amount, you’ve reached the zenith of happiness that money can buy.
You buy that?
29 comments:
So, what do they use to measure happiness? A happy meter.
If that's not a rhetorical question, there are various institutions that have done studies, using surveys I believe.
For instance, the University of Michigan:
http://thehappinessshow.com/HappiestCountries.htm
Which finds these are the top five happiest countries:
1. Nigeria
2. Mexico
3. Venezuela
4. El Salvador
5. Puerto Rico
If a valid measure, it's pretty amazing, huh? These poor nations are happier than the US with all our affluence and Stuff.
It was a tongue-in-cheek comment. But I did find your answer interesting. Thanks.
Surprisingly, I'm not surprised with the findings. Money itself cannot provide happiness. Things cannot buy happiness. Things, money, houses... none of that gives you the warmth that family and community provide. Nothing gives you the warm fuzzies like a newborn baby or the laugh of little kids at play.
People have to do studies to confirm what most people have known for centuries. Still, it's interesting to have the data laid out like that.
As an afterthought... if these countries are so happy, you have to wonder why they are all migrating to a miserable place like this! :-)
I believe that the survey is measuring individual happiness ratings from these countries. Contentment, if you will.
Not that they're necessarily happy with their lot in life where they are.
Oh, I'll grant you I gathered that much. That was just a bit of a joke. By the way, we've never exactly seen eye-to-eye but it's good to talk to you again.
Good to hear from you, too.
What strikes me most is that the $10,000 level is well below the U.S. poverty line. Is that number consistent across different cultures, or is it a global average?
I'm also concerned about the $10,000 mark. Are there no adjustments for inflation? A person in the U.S. or the UK, France, etc. that made only $10,000 per annum would be in that misery category, it seems to me.
I have no problem with the basic ideas you are presenting as McKibbens', but I just question this detail.
I'm thinking he's talking about $10,000 in real terms in today's dollars.
I think he might say that if one is trying to live in a 2500 (5500?) s.f. house 25 miles from work, buying ALL the stuff that we buy at the rate we buy it and the ways we buy it, $10,000/year wouldn't work, but if we're living thusly that it won't work indefinitely regardless in the longterm. It's not a sustainable rate of living, he'd say.
We could live within walking distance of work, have no cars, and rent and $10,000 with a family of 4 would put us so far beneath the poverty line that we'd need food stamps and other assistance to catch up. If McKibbens believes otherwise, he's living in a fantasy world, today.
"Which finds these are the top five happiest countries:
1. Nigeria
2. Mexico
3. Venezuela
4. El Salvador
5. Puerto Rico"
I'm sorry, but if they say Mexico is the 2nd happiest country, I'd be curious what their measure of happiness is. Like someone else asked, if people are so happy in Mexico, why do they migrate here? I'm not trying to be ethnocentric, but I think it is a valid question.
Also, it is a valid question about what the standard of happiness is. There was another study a few months ago. It measured standard of happiness by levels of consumption. Well, such a study is self-gratifying. It says the standard of happiness is "less consumption", it finds those countries and says "see, those countries with less consumption are happier."
I do agree, stuff does not bring happiness. Apparently corrupt governments do based on this study.
"Like someone else asked, if people are so happy in Mexico, why do they migrate here? I'm not trying to be ethnocentric, but I think it is a valid question."
Oh, I got this answer in another post. Obviously, the U.S. does not have anything that people from other countries would want. Better living conditions, better anything for that matter has nothing to do with that. If they move here it is because we made their lives miserable. In other words, people moving here is because we did something wrong to them, but anything we have to offer.
"people are so happy in Mexico, why do they migrate here?"
They migrate here for at least two reasons I can think of:
1. The ineptitude of their own leaders in having healthy local policies and economies,
2. The unjustness of our foreign and economic policies, which are taking away the livelihood of many in Mexico
Oh, and in response to your second post (that appeared after I answered), I can think of at least one other reason:
3. Our advertisers have done such a good job at teaching the world that the US way is the best, funnest and sexiest way to live.
According to the the migrants here in Louisville and other places that I've heard from, they DON't WANT to be here, they want to be home with their loved ones. (Hard to imagine!) They are here largely because they don't want their loved ones to die from hunger or do without basic necessities.
They tell me that when they've sent enough remittances back home, they have every intention of returning home.
I never said that America was perfect, I don't want to be in the category of "Our country: right or wrong!". But I think some people are on the other extreme, where they are afraid to mention that maybe, just maybe, America has some good things that people from other countries like. I don't think people even have to think America is the best country, but I think there are some good things.
I think there are some great things about our country. Our constitution is a marvel, I think. Our liberty to worship, our freedom of press - while having problems - are a great thing.
We are a generous people. We can generally disagree without killing one another.
There are many great things about our nation. However, we have allowed our System to be addicted to an unsustainable process and we are importing that flawed system globally. It is a tremendously fatal flaw, seems to me. One that we will have to address sooner or lately and most likely sooner.
Michael:"We could live within walking distance of work, have no cars, and rent and $10,000 with a family of 4 would put us so far beneath the poverty line that we'd need food stamps and other assistance to catch up."
Ha! I think the Biblical refrain would be paraphrased today as A prophet is not without honor, save on his own blog.
My family of significantly more than four has two vehicles (that run), do not have food stamps nor any other assistance of any kind, AND our annual income is just below $10,000. And we own ourselves to be quite well off. We want for nothing and life is essentially one long party, fiesta, kamaru, forever.
Essentially, my man, with all due respect and deference, you just don't get it. Nothing to be embarrassed about, most people don't get it.
Before saving the rest of the world and aiming your sights on bringing about peace and justice, find out what it would look like in the end if you were successful.
Dan:"2. The unjustness of our foreign and economic policies, which are taking away the livelihood of many in Mexico"
In Mexico land ownership isn't handled as it is the states. Since la revolucion when land was redistributed, families "own" land, hold title to land, only so long as that land is in useful production by the very family that holds it. It's an admirable system and has been fair for many a year. It prevents the wealthy from buying up family farms since the wealthy can't hold title to it unless that family themselves work it.
Then the US floods Mexico with cheap, heavily subsidized corn. People who don't eat meal corn directly as a major food (as we do on this farmstead) can't understand how this affects a country's economy. Since NAFTA the Mexican farmers face greater and greater farmer insolvency. They cannot farm their family plots and so risk loosing them.
Family members come to the US and send a great deal of money back to Mexico so the family can afford to farm at a loss and thus keep title to the land.
So let me pose the question, then, If the US is so attractive to the Mexicans, why do they send so much of their money back to Mexico rather than throw in the toalla and move the whole family to the US??
It's because they recognize the potential for a happier life there.
Thanks, Eleutheros. Very challenging and interesting input.
The $10,000 claim rings true to me but I will have to own up to having a difficult time envisioning how that would play out on a global scale.
Have you written about your extravagantly graceful lifestyle at your place? (I know, of course, that you often do, in general, but do you have a rough layout drawn of what that looks like? "I get up in the morning at 6am and milk the goats and cut firewood. My partner cooks breakfast while the kids do their chores. After breakfast (of homegrown eggs, bacon and biscuits), I spend x hours..."
That kind of thing?
And is there the option for town-dwellers in your world, folk who make computers, bicycles, frying pans, etc and who do NOT therefore live off a farm but trade or buy their food instead?
I'd be interested in knowing.
Dan, the $10,000 is in terms of that amount of goods and services. Here in the states that would be ten grand, but in some countries the actual cash in US $ would be a fraction of that for the same goods.
A sample day (or week or month) wouldn't be enlightening. If a master chef gave one of his recipes to someone who was indifferent to food, would you expect the results to be the same? Just like that, the itinerary of our days isn't a recipe for free or fulfilled life.
As long as someone looks to government, or collectivism, to provide a fulfilling life, so long as they see life in terms of a token exchange system (money), everything that goes on here makes no sense whatever.
But once there is a transformation, a 'renewing of your minds' (NT metanoia) that the pursuit of the current paradigm is a dead end and drifts the individual farther and farther away from fulfillment, then it all falls into place.
I understand that (I think). I can fully understand how it's possible to successfully make it on less than $10,000 a year using something similar to your lifestyle (you and many others are doing it, after all).
My question, and probably others, is: Do we all have to adopt something fairly similar to your farming lifestyle to accomplish that? What of the computer, pan and bicycle makers? The smiths and the nurses?
I have a more difficult time seeing how other jobs can survive in the economy you're talking about.
Which is not to say that I'm advocating your approach as invalide unless every job we currently have is retained. Heaven forbid!
I'm just wondering how we do what McKibben seems to be - and you definitely are talking about on the grand scale?
I am committed to living and working in cities. It is a call from God. I have HUGE respect for farmers (although ZERO for those who play at farming and commute to jobs that pay enough to let them play farmer). I worked on my grandparents' farm.
But I have ZERO desire to move to a farm. After a month, I would commit suicide. If everyone has to adopt Eleutheros' lifestyle, (a) most of the world's population would perish for lack of enough land, and (b) those of us completely unsuited to farm life would go crazy--and probably do harm to land or people on our way to killing ourselves.
Eleutheros' narrow definition of righteous work leaves out most of the world's population. No thanks. Not for me. EVER.
Michael, I don't know if Eleutheros has indicated that everyone MUST be a farmer. I would be glad to hear what he has to say.
But let's not be hasty.
Some people say, "You can't possibly live a peaceful lifestyle in this world," when what they mean is that they just can't imagine how anyone could do so.
Perhaps we suffer from a lack of imagination. Perhaps we have been told that "THIS is the way to live and we can do no other" to the point that we have a difficult time believing it possible that a family of four (or more) could EVER live on $10,000/year, even when we know that reality says otherwise.
What if we were told (I believe this will be McKibben's point, or one of them) that we can continue to live indefinitely (ie, not make ourselves extinct) only by changing fundamentally the way we live. We can no longer purchased pre-packaged food shipped to the Southeast from Oregon, which received their source food from Brazil; we can no longer have one car for every person; we can no longer purchase jeans made in Zimbabwe; we can no longer create cities full of grassy lotted-homes in the desert...and that if we choose to continue to live thusly, we will doom humanity to massive wars, starvation and possible extinction? What if that were the case?
If so, then wouldn't it only make logical and moral sense to begin to live otherwise? Wouldn't clinging to that old way be wrong, wrong, wrong?
I must admit, I have some difficulty imaging our world in a post-petroleum age. But I have even greater difficulty imaginging how we can continue to live with as few limitations on our growth and consumption as we do now.
I am fine with our world in a post-petroleum age. Even prior to the Industrial Revolution, I would not have wanted to live on a farm.
if you need more than $10K just to eat it doesn't seem to me you'd be fine in a post oil age. And I wonder which of Dan's useful jobs you would be willing to do? Skillet maker? Strapping smithy? Doctor?
My grandfather was a preacher but he earned his money as a skilled carpenter and fed his family with a love of gardening. I think that is the paradigm.
Dan:"My question, and probably others, is: Do we all have to adopt something fairly similar to your farming lifestyle to accomplish that? What of the computer, pan and bicycle makers? The smiths and the nurses?"
If everyone lived the lifestyle of the subsistence farmer, we'd need precious few nurses.
That aside, yes, you'd have to adopt something very similar. But let's examine what that is. Everyone I know that has decided to drop the Babylonian life cold turkey and plant themselves on a farmstead has failed. And small wonder. This is a lifestyle for the work-hardened. 'Work-hardened' has three components (says I) 1) Strength 2) Endurance 3)Patience
The Ivory Towered cannot just show up one day here, take up the tools, and work like us. It would kill them.
But this lifestyle isn't a place, nor a goal, nor a set of skills and abilities. It's a direction.
The bafflement over the $10K illustrates this. It is now of days second nature for us to list the food, energy, clothes, insurance etc. the average family needs and see that paying cash for all of it makes ten thousand seem woefully inadequate. Perhaps.
Let me give an extreme example. A neighbor who has a limited income had the pipes below his kitchen sink freeze and break. A plumber coming way out here in the backwater would cost him around $300. I fixed his sink for $2.50. I didn't even mention the cost of the the fitting to him. If we say, hey a family of four might have to have their plumbing fixed so $300 must be budgeted in that yearly $10K. No it doesn't. That is a default and a mindset that all of life is purchased.
I notice in the marts that an almost acceptable 2# loaf of whole grain bread is at least $3. We have an abundance of the best nut brown whole grain bread. We don't grow the wheat (generally). That loaf of bread costs us as a cash outlay about 18 cents. Youngest Daughter grinds the wheat and Et Ux mixes and kneads the bread while we are all in conversation about the days events. The oven is already hot from other uses (we don't buy the fuel). And there, without fretting of 'finding the time' are several loaves of the best bread in the world.
Should I mention that a pint of whole barley malt beer costs about 11 cents here.
While I am brewing and Et Ux is baking, another daughter has a pile of socks on her lap and a darning needle. Her skill is amazing. A $2 pair of socks lasts seven years with a darner in the house.
I could go on for quite a bit of bandwidth and not tell the tenth of it and yet mention nothing that has to do with having a farm.
A farm is a logical place to which the self-sufficient would gravitate. But it really has very little to do per se with simple living.
As long as one's life and lifestyle are viewed as purchased, there is little hope.
McKibben then points out that, despite all this Stuff, we are less happy.
In 1946, the United States was the happiest country among four advanced economies; thirty years later, it was eighth among eleven advanced countries; a decade after that it ranked tenth among twenty-three nations,
It's all about expectations. If you've grown up in the Great Depression, you're happy with a full belly. If you grew up with DSL Internet, you flip out if accidentially left your iPod in your Jaguar.
One of the best things that my parents did for me when I was growing up was to live frugally. As a consequence, having a bunch of stuff just isn't that important to me. At least comparatively.
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