May 10, 2006
The economy is soaring, yet people will tell you it's the worst ever. Iraq is in a shambles, yet al Qaeda is out penning their last will and testament. Gas prices are driving us into a depression, yet nobody has stopped filling up their SUVs yet. What's going on? What cycle of opposites grips us?
As it turns out, part of the problem may be that in our "instant gratification" society we've ignored an age old addage: Money does not buy happiness.
From 1995 to 2004, inflation-adjusted median family income -- for families precisely in the middle -- rose 14.3 percent, to $43,200, the Federal Reserve says. People feel "squeezed" because their rising incomes often don't satisfy their rising wants -- for bigger homes, more health care, more education, faster Internet connections.
The other great frustration is that it has not eliminated insecurity. People regard job stability as part of their standard of living. As corporate layoffs increased, that part has eroded. More workers fear they've become "the disposable American," as Louis Uchitelle puts it in his book by the same name. Galbraith expected the affluent society to be a placid society. Giant corporations would control markets and provide safe jobs; government would regulate business cycles. Underestimated were the disruptive effects of new technologies, globalization and activist shareholders.
Ours is a post-affluent society. Because so much previous suffering and social conflict stemmed from poverty, the advent of widespread affluence suggested utopian possibilities. Up to a point, affluence succeeds. There is much less physical misery than before. People are better off. Unfortunately, affluence also creates new complaints and contradictions.
This is not to say that genuine concerns not expressedly connected to affluence haven't plagued our society in recent years - terrorism, war, the ill-timed hurricane. But the argument could be made that while 9-11 did signify a monumental shift in warfare and prevention, the uncertainty and fears this new era brings are not wholly unique to our history.
The weather has always been an unknown - think the hurricane of 1900 that destroyed Galveston, or hurricane Camille. And for much of the Cold War we lived with the threat of nuclear annihilation. Ahmadinejad's rambling screed to the U.S. wasn't backed with a Cuba full of nukes like Khrushchev's to President Kennedy. We survived the Korean conflict, Vietnam, the first Gulf War. And so our drift through the 90s, through a time of relative peace and prosperity, was actually not the norm, but the anomoly.
The problems of the world are mounting, especially in the wake of the continuing war on terror, a war that - make no mistake - it will fall to the United States to see through to the end. So, yes, our trials are not over, or possibly even just beginning. But in a society seeing some of the best prosperity in years, with companies desperate for new hires and salaries rising fast, and having a good deal more success in the war on terror than we often realize, a good portion of our decidedly glum attitude may be stemming from within.
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