Nivel de Ingresos y Felicidad

Muy interesante articulo de Johan Norberg sobre la relación entre mayores ingresos y felicidad. Hay autores que sostienen que no hay relación directa, de manera que mayores ingresos no significan mayor felicidad. Norberg apunta a unas cuantas obviedades para mostrar lo contrario.

Siempre pienso que muchos de los grandes pensadores, los cráneos del primer mundo se pueden dar el lujo de escribir imbecilidades como estas básicamente porque hace varias generaciones que no viven ni remotamente de cerca lo que es la pobreza y el atraso. De otra manera no se entiende que alguien pueda decir estas cosas:

THERE'S A THEORY going around — popularized most recently in a book by British economist Richard Layard — that money doesn't buy happiness. Earning more money, Layard argues, won't make us happy because most of us are interested in relative wealth rather than absolute wealth. If we earn more money, but our neighbors do too, then we're not going to be any happier than we were before. We quickly grow accustomed to our new level of wealth and begin to aspire to still more. It's a "hedonic treadmill."

Layard looks at these issues not on the individual level but on a macro scale — as an economist determining priorities for government policy. His studies indicate that there is a dramatic jump in the reported well-being of a nation when it moves from an average national income of about $5,000 to $15,000 a year. But at that point, satisfaction levels off. From this, Layard concludes that we shouldn't emphasize economic growth as much as we do, but we should increase taxes, discourage hard work, slow down mobility and give ourselves more time to do the things that actually increase our happiness — spending time with family and friends and reading Layard's books.

But is that the right conclusion? I'm not so sure.