Affluence Happiness (and how to measure it)

　　HAVING grown at an annual rate of 3.2% per head since 2000, the world economy is over half way towards notching up its best decade ever. If it keeps going at this clip, it will beat both the supposedly idyllic 1950s and the 1960s. Market capitalism, the engine that runs most of the world economy, seems to be doing its job well.

　　But is it? Once upon a time, that job was generally agreed to be to make people better off. Nowadays that’s not so clear. A number of economists, in search of big problems to solve, and politicians, looking for bold promises to make, think that it ought to be doing something else: making people happy.

　　The view that economics should be about more than money is widely held in continental Europe. In debates with Anglo-American capitalists, wily bons vivants have tended to cite the idea of “quality of life” to excuse slower economic growth. But now David Cameron, the latest leader of Britain’s once rather materialistic Conservative Party, has espoused the notion of “general well-being” (GWB) as an alternative to the more traditional GDP. In America, meanwhile, inequality, over-work and other hidden costs of prosperity were much discussed in the mid-term elections; and “wellness” (as opposed to health) has become a huge industry, catering especially to the prosperous discontent of the baby-boomers.

　　Much of this draws on the upstart science of happiness, which mixes psychology with economics. Its adherents start with copious survey data, such as those derived from the simple, folksy question put to thousands of Americans every year or two since 1972:“Taken all together, how would you say things are these days—would you say that you are very happy, pretty happy or not too happy?” Some of the results are unsurprising: the rich report being happier than do the poor. But a paradox emerges that requires explanation: affluent countries have not got much happier as they have grown richer. From America to Japan, figures for well-being have barely budged.

　　The science of happiness offers two explanations for the paradox. Capitalism, it notes, is adept at turning luxuries into necessities—bringing to the masses what the elites have always enjoyed. But the flip side of this genius is that people come to take for granted things they once coveted from afar. Frills they never thought they could have become essentials that they cannot do without. People are stuck on a treadmill: as they achieve a better standard of living, they become inured to its pleasures.

　　Capitalism’s ability to take things downmarket also has its limits. Many of the things people most prize—such as the top jobs, the best education, or an exclusive home address—are luxuries by necessity. An elite schooling, for example, ceases to be so if it is provided to everyone. These “positional goods”, as they are called, are in fixed supply: you can enjoy them only if others do not. The amount of money and effort required to grab them depends on how much your rivals are putting in.

　　考研詞匯：

　　cater[[ˈkeitə]

　　vi.備辦食物，滿足(需要)，投合

　　[真題例句] “Instead of intimate shops catering to a knowledgeable elite.” these were stores “anyone could enter, regardless of class or background. This turned shopping into a public and democratic act.”[2006年閱讀1]

　　[例句精譯] “不像那些個人商店那樣，只滿足有學識的精英人士的需求”，這些商店“不論階級與背景，任何人都能進入。這推進了購物大眾化和民主化的進程。”

　　prosperous[ˈprɔspərəs]

　　a.繁榮的，興旺的

　　[真題例句] America and Americans were prosperous beyond the dreams of the Europeans and Asians whose economies the war had destroyed.[2000年閱讀1]

　　[例句精譯] 美國的國富民強是那些經濟遭到戰爭破壞的歐亞諸國做夢也無法想到的。

　　derive[diˈraiv]

　　v.取得，導出，引申