Can Money Buy Happiness?

Published October 15th, 2007

Newsweek tackles the question, “Does Money Buy Happiness?.” The answer is, once your basic needs are meet, not really. Here’s a quote from the article, “differences in well-being are less frequently due to income, and are more frequently due to factors such as social relationships and enjoyment at work.” I think people know this, at least intuitively, but there’s the matter of these hegemonic systems that define and control social behaviors. Systems like capitalism, the advertising industry, government, often in collusion with corporations. I don’t think these systems are inherently bad, or wrong, but given what we’re all trying to do, which is be happy, ultimately, I think they are broken, or faulty, or missing the mark, however you want to put it. Setting aside those who don’t have their basic needs meet, the vast majority of folks do not need to get more, they need to be more. Most of our social, political, and economic systems focus on temporal matters, and define happiness in terms of what one has, and not what one is being. You know, you feel like a miserable shit, but as long as you can vote and buy you’re doing all right. There’s a disconnect.

— Et Cetera > Subscribe [RSS] > Bookmark

— Post Tags > + +

— Related writing:

— And Recent Writing:

A. Moses Griffin (base64 image) Amos Moses Griffin fennis.dembo@gmail.com
300 Big Pond Road
Huguenot, New York, 12746
207 602-5442
AIM YIM