Can't buy me love, love
Can't buy me love

I'll buy you a diamond ring my friend if it makes you feel alright
I'll get you anything my friend if it makes you feel alright
'Cause I don't care too much for money, money can't buy me love

I'll give you all I got to give if you say you love me too
I may not have a lot to give but what I got I'll give to you
I don't care too much for money, money can't buy me love

Can't buy me love, everybody tells me so
Can't buy me love, no no no, no

-The Beatles

Lord Richard Layard

The publication in January of the book Happiness Lessons from a New Science by Lord Richard Layard, the London School of Economics' director of the centre for economic performance, has focused a lot of attention on the issue of happiness and wealth.

Layard says that there is a paradox at the heart of our lives.

Many in rich societies join the ratrace for conspicuous consumption status goods rather than inconspicuous goods–such as freedom from a long commute or a stressful job

We all want more money, but as societies become richer, they do not become happier. This is not speculation: It's the story told by countless pieces of scientific research. We now have sophisticated ways of measuring how happy people are, and all the evidence shows that on average people have grown no happier in the last fifty years, even as average incomes have more than doubled.

The central question that Richard Layard asks in Happiness is this: If we really wanted to be happier, what would we do differently? First we'd have to see clearly what conditions generate happiness and then bend all our efforts toward producing them. That is what this book is about-the causes of happiness and the means we have to effect it.

In the 1940’s Abraham Maslow, one of the founding fathers of humanist approaches to management, wrote an influential paper, which set out five fundamental human needs needs and their hierarchical nature.

In ascending order, they are:  

1. Biological and Physiological needs - air, food, drink, shelter, warmth, sex, sleep, etc.

2. Safety needs - protection from elements, security, order, law, limits, stability, etc.

3. Belongingness and Love needs - work group, family, affection, relationships, etc.

4. Esteem needs - self-esteem, achievement, mastery, independence, status, dominance, prestige, managerial responsibility, etc.

5. Self-Actualization needs - realising personal potential, self-fulfilment, seeking personal growth and peak experiences.

The dramatic transformation of Irish society in the past decade has put the majority of Irish people beyond the basic needs levels and in a large global survey that was published in 2004, Ireland was among the wealthy countries, which headed the happiness rankings.

The World Database of Happiness is a project headed by Professor  Ruut Veenhoven of the University of Erasmus, the Netherlands. Professor Veenhoven says that  Veenhoven Denmark fulfils to the letter the five essential prerequisites for the creation of a happy community:

While Ireland's changed economic fortunes have improved our level of satisfaction with life, rising incomes in general will not result in an additional improvement in our satisfaction levels.

Robert H. Frank is  Professor of Management, Cornell University,

Professor Robert H. Frank

and author of Luxury Fever. He says that an enduring paradox in the literature on human happiness is that although the rich are significantly happier than the poor within any country at any moment, average happiness levels change very little as people’s incomes rise in tandem over time. Others have interpreted these observations to mean that happiness depends on relative rather than absolute income. Frank says that gains in happiness that might have been expected to result from growth in absolute income have not materialized because of the ways in which people in affluent societies have generally spent their incomes.

Frank provides two different answers to the question "Does money buy happiness?" He says that considerable evidence suggests that if we use an increase in our incomes, as many of us do, to buy bigger houses and more expensive cars, then we do not end up 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. The less we spend on conspicuous consumption goods, the better we can afford to alleviate congestion; and the more time we can devote to family and friends, to exercise, sleep, travel, and other restorative activities. On the best available evidence, reallocating our time and money in these and similar ways would result in healthier, longer–and happier–lives.

However, the evidence suggests that if income affects happiness, it is  relative, not absolute, income that matters. Many purchases become more attractive to us when others make them means that consumption spending has much in common with a military     arms race. A family can choose how much of its own money to spend, but it cannot choose how much others spend. Buying a smaller-than-average vehicle means greater risk of dying in an accident. Spending less on an interview suit means a greater risk of not landing the best job. Yet when all spend more on heavier cars and more finely tailored suits, the results tend to be mutually offsetting, just as when all nations spend more on armaments. Spending less on bombs or on personal consumption frees up money for other pressing uses, but only if everyone does it.

Richard Layard writes about contentment : cultivate friendships, be involved in a community, try for a good marriage. Consistent with Robert Frank's point, Layard says that a zero-sum game of competition for money and status has gripped rich societies, and that this rat race is a big source of unhappiness. In simple terms, one person's pay rise is another person's psychic loss. Layard says that there are only so many top rungs on the ladder of status in society.

Universities provide a good example of organisations where the majority of staff are at any one time seeking to position themselves to improve their chances of winning a top position.  

In 1996, Dr Brian Martin of the University of Wollongong, New South Wales, wrote that compared to most other occupations, academics have much to be happy about. They have higher than average salaries, stimulating work and great control over the way they organise their time and tasks. Yet academics complain bitterly about their pay, about increasing workloads and about harassment from ever more diverse administrative requirements and expectations.

Dr. Martin said more than money, what's really involved here is status. Salary is a symbol of status in the general community. Just as important, though, is status within academia itself.

Universities are status systems. Individual academics keenly seek promotions, not just for increased pay but because of increased rank and associated status. Giving papers at conferences, getting papers published in prestigious journals and bringing in research funds are all ways of improving one's status. 

"The trouble with the academic status system is that a general improvement in everyone's status is difficult, since status depends most of all on comparisons with immediate colleagues. When one person's status goes up, the relative status of others goes down. As a consequence, the successes of colleagues are often resented rather than welcomed," Dr. Martin wrote. "Denigration of colleagues, other departments and disciplines is a common theme in informal conversations. Many academics express resentment about those they believe are inferior to themselves but who receive equal or greater rewards, whether this is the form of appointments, promotions, research grants or reputation. It is less common to hear academics acknowledging that there is anyone with greater accomplishments who has been treated less well than themselves. The enormous significance attached to honours such as membership in academies and Noble prizes is symptomatic of the scholarly status race. There is usually more interest in who receives such honours than in what the recipients are being honoured for."

Dr. Martin said that one way to get beyond envy and the status race is to focus on intrinsic satisfaction. This is possible in teaching, for example in seeing students improve their understanding and performance over a period of time. It is also possible in research, when the topic is chosen for its intellectual or social importance rather than its utility as a vehicle for personal advance.

In business and other professions, an individual can be well off financially but can be screwed up because he or she have not done "as well" as some contemporaries. I recall some years ago a businessman lamenting that he had attended Dublin's Gonzaga School a few years after businessman Denis O'Brien. In big companies such as banks, there is always speculation as to which divisional manager is going to get the job. Lucky  is the person who can shrug his shoulders when passed over and be thankful for the good fortune which life has brought.

It's a weird society where the person who drives an elegant car appears to get credit for a great feat of engineering rather than the people who made it. As the growing wealthy elite in Irish society flaunt their conspicuous consumption, it's ridiculous that many of us who are only a generation from poverty but now live comfortable lives lack the cop-on to count our blessings and actually enjoy the limited life, which we have.

The following is a summary of the results of a World Values Survey:

 Subjective well-being rankings of 82 societies

(based on combined Happiness and Life Satisfaction score)