Satisfaction

The idea of satisfaction has been knocking around in my head for a while, actually perhaps decades, although more so recently.  I remember a brunch at a friend's house about 30 years ago.  Most of the people there were economists, but a couple of non-economist partners were in attendance.  One of them asked why the importance of innovation and economic growth was taken as gospel truth among economists.  Most people in the world have everything they need to lead fulfilling, enjoyable lives, he said.  We would have to do something for the minority who do not, of course, but that shouldn't be too difficult given the huge cushions that most of us have between our resources and what is actually required to make us happy.  The question struck me as both naive and profound (as many of the best questions are).  The naive part:  We have learned a lot about the political economy of redistribution in the past century and a half and understand the perils of government policies that ignore or seek to alter individual incentives.  But here is the profound part:  Where do our individual incentives to earn more, acquire more, consume more come from?  Why do we feel the strong imperative to do better financially than our parents?  Does this impulse arise from competition with and comparison to others?  Are these compulsions an essential part of the human condition, or are they a product of our post-industrial, post-survivalist, post-mass-media existence?  

The economists at the brunch had a variety of answers.  We talked about poverty alleviation and better education and health outcomes for the poor.  (That response, of course, was more about distribution than overall wealth, but the claim was that redistribution becomes more palatable when the pie is bigger.  I'm not sure that that is the lesson I would draw from recent years of US political history, but we were having this conversation around 1990, so we might be forgiven.)  One response that seemed a bit more convincing was that an increasing portion of our national (perhaps world) income is going to basic medical research as we become wealthier, and we were all in agreement that cures to Alzheimer's, cancer, heart disease, Parkinson's, serious allergies, and the like would be worth a tremendous amount.  

Still that question stuck in my mind.  Several years later, I was reading E.H. Grombrich's "A Little History of the World" to one of my daughters as a bedtime story.  I was struck by a claim he made about ancient Egypt, which I cannot quote directly.  He said something about how the notion of progress, or economic growth, or societal change, was largely absent.  Stability and predictability were the foundations of comfort and happiness.  (If I had a copy of the book with me here in France, I would reread it now, partly for my own edification, but also so I could reproduce his argument and evidence more faithfully here.  And, of course, texts from ancient Egypt that have filtered down to the modern era that inform the writing of history were more likely to have come from society's elite, who thought stability was just grand, not those who were enslaved or teetering on the edge of survival, who might have thirsted for societal change.)  The fact that Egyptian society under the pharaohs existed for thousands(!) of years seems consistent with his claim. 

Then, just this past week, while wandering around the Arenes de Lutece, I had a conversation with a friend visiting from the US (Amy, who is also an economist) touching on this very topic (as well as the future of democracy, the strength of US institutions, changing income and wealth distributions, etc., etc.).  We did not solve any of the world's problems, but we did puzzle about this centering of economic growth in so much of what academic economists do and how we think.  

All of these random musings were somehow tied together as a package and delivered back to me by a movie that Glenn and I saw last night.  "Perfect Days" is a recent Wim Wenders film, but it is set and shot in Japan with Japanese actors and dialog.  I wanted to see it in the theaters, but we could only find versions with French subtitles, not English, and I was afraid that some of the subtlety might be lost on me, even if the French subtitles gave me a basic understanding.  It turns out that we could have and should have seen it in the theater.  It was a movie of enormous subtlety and nuance and emotion, but it was almost all visual, carried through the faces of the actors and small gestures and glimpses of sunlight and shadow and scenes from everyday life, not through the spoken word.

It is a soft and gentle film about a man with a small but tidy apartment, a job that others disdain but that he enjoys and does well, and a series of routines that bring him joy and comfort and human connection.  It really is a meditation on the sources of happiness but also, importantly, on the power of happiness.  Fueled by his own substantial reserve of well-being, he improves all of the lives he comes into contact with, sometimes with humor, sometimes with warmth and understanding, sometimes with generosity.

The film also, pointedly, is not about the power of progress and innovation and economic growth, but quite the opposite.  The main character gains much joy from listening to his collection of cassette tapes of classic rock from the 60's and 70's.  He reads books, not blogs.  He does not know what Spotify is.  He also loves taking photos of trees (hence my previous post) but does so with a film camera, not a smartphone.  And all of these routines result in human contact, whereas their modern counterparts might not.  (One example:  every week, he takes a roll of film into the camera store to have it developed.  He exchanges a greeting or a glance with the employee there.  Me?  I just interact with my phone and Google Photos.)  

How do I reconcile that image of happiness with what I do every day as an economist?  I do believe my work--doing research to better understand market inefficiencies, informing policy makers, teaching valuable tools and ideas to students at MIT and around the world--has the potential to be valuable and make the world a better place (on a very small scale), but it sometimes seems to be at odds with other, equally valid, notions of what a better world might look like.  I suppose I have a while to ponder this paradox.  I hope there is room in the world for both, or many, notions of happiness.  

By the way, I have my friend Ty Burr, film critic par excellence, to thank for the movie suggestion.  I read more film reviews than I see films, but that's because I always care about why Ty has to say.  And I'm glad I took his advice this time.

https://www.tyburrswatchlist.com/

As I was writing this essay, it occurred to me that these thoughts and doubts about satisfaction and the sources of happiness have origins well before I became an economist.  Here is one of my favorite passages from one of my favorite novels, "Moby Dick":

"I have perceived that in all cases man must eventually lower, or at least shift, his conceit of attainable felicity; not placing it anywhere in the intellect or the fancy; but in the wife, the heart, the bed, the table, the saddle, the fire-side, the country."