The Easterlin Paradox: An Interpretation

Abstract

The paradox of happiness or the Easterlin paradox (Easterlin, 74) states there is no time-series relationship between happiness and income. The aim of this paper is to try to give a different interpretation of this paradox by resorting to the philosophical view of the ancient Greeks, and in particular to the strong conflict between the Sophists and Plato on the nature of the asset. According to the Sophists pleasure coincides with the good because, as stated Protagoras, Man is the measure of all things. Plato points out such a distinction between pleasure and the good that will set in the history of Western thought, at least until the affirmation of Utilitarianism, which will indirectly draw inspiration itself from the sophist school. Plato's Gorgias contains a positive, detailed analysis of the problem. Its conclusion is that the good is different from pleasure, and who associates it with pleasure lies a state of perpetual dissatisfaction. Another Greek myth, the story of Prometheus, just tells us how men have resorted to the techne, or technology, in order to overcome its limits and to try to remove that sense of dissatisfaction. If it is true, it is dissatisfaction or unhappiness that force the man to work, to be efficient and create income; thus the causal link between happiness and income turns upside down as it is exactly dissatisfaction and unhappiness to generate income. The existing differences between the two schools of thought originate two antithetical views of the world. The first enhances individualism and techne, while the second highlights sociability, ethics and politics. The empirical evidence found by Easterlin states the inability of the economic growth and/or of the technical progress of making man happy. That is the reason why, in the technological society, it is named a paradox.