[extropy-chat] FWD (SK) The Afflictions of Affluence

Terry W. Colvin fortean1 at mindspring.com
Tue Mar 16 02:16:54 UTC 2004


The Afflictions of Affluence

What do obesity, the 'time crunch' and buyer's remorse all have in common? Well,
they're problems of wealthier societiesBy Robert J. Samuelson
NewsweekMarch 22 issue - It may seem a bit unnatural, but more and more of our
social problems and complaints stem from our affluence, not our poverty.
Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson made that point last
week—unintentionally, to be sure—when he announced that obesity now rivals
smoking as the largest cause of premature death. The Centers for Disease Control
reckons that obesity contributes to about 400,000 deaths annually, just behind
tobacco (435,000) and ahead of alcohol (85,000), car accidents (43,000) and guns
(29,000). Obesity and its complications—more diabetes and heart disease, for
instance—now account for an estimated 9 percent of U.S. health spending. When we
were poorer, obesity was not a big problem.


The supposed villains here are fast-food restaurants and food companies that
have supersized us to corpulence. There's some truth to this, but the larger and
more boring truth is that food's gotten cheaper, and as a result, we consume
more of it—and more away from home. In 1950, Americans devoted a fifth of their
disposable incomes to food (and less than a fifth of that to eating out). Now
food's share is a tenth (and almost half is out). We eat what pleases us, and so
why should anyone be surprised that the average American now consumes about 150
pounds of sugar and sweeteners annually, up roughly 20 percent since 1980? The
only saving grace is that some of the extra food "is thrown away—otherwise, all
Americans would weigh 300 pounds," says Roland Sturm, an obesity expert at the
Rand Corp.

It's misleading to ascribe all the resulting flab to American self-indulgence.
China shows signs of an obesity problem, says Sturm. So do some other countries
escaping poverty. "It's definitely one side effect of getting wealthier," he
says. Now the idea that people spend less on basics like food is usually
considered good, because it means they can spend more on other things. Their
living standards improve. But there's no guarantee that they'll spend wisely on
food or anything else.

Getting wealthier spawns other complaints. One is the "time squeeze"—the sense
that we're more harried than ever. We all know this is true; we're tugged by
jobs, family, PTA and soccer. Actually, it's not true. People go to work later
in life and retire earlier. Housework has declined. One survey found that in
1999 only 14 percent of wives did more than four hours of daily housework; the
figure was 43 percent in 1977 and 87 percent in 1924. Even when jobs and
housework are combined, total work hours for women and men have dropped.

Still, people gripe—and griping rises with income, report economists Daniel
Hamermesh of the University of Texas and Jungmin Lee of the University of
Arkansas. They studied the United States, Germany, Australia, Canada and South
Korea. People who were otherwise statistically similar (same age, working hours,
number of children) complained more about the "time squeeze" as their incomes
rose. Hamermesh and Lee's explanation: the more money people have, the more
things they can do with their time; time becomes more valuable, and people
increasingly resent that they can't create more of it.


Psychologist Barry Schwartz of Swarthmore College makes the broader point in his
new book, "The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less." Our individual culture
worships choice, but too much of it leads to choice congestion. Consumer Reports
now "offers comparisons among 220 new car models, 250 breakfast cereals, 400
VCRs, 40 household soaps, 500 health insurance policies, 350 mutual funds, and
even 35 showerheads," Schwartz writes. People feel overwhelmed by the time it
takes to make the "best" choice—and may later regret having made the wrong
choice. Purchasing blunders may irritate, but bigger mistakes of choice (in
careers, work vs. family) can be profoundly depressing, Schwartz argues.

As material wants are satisfied, psychological desires ascend. But these defy
easy economic balm. "Most of what people really want in life—love, friendship,
respect, family, standing, fun ... does not pass through the market," writes
Gregg Easterbrook in his book "The Progress Paradox: How Life Gets Better While
People Feel Worse." (Note how paradox pops up in these titles.) Indeed,
affluence may make matters worse. In 1957, 3 percent of Americans felt "lonely,"
according to a survey cited by Easterbrook; now 13 percent do. Although more
people can afford to exist apart, it may not be good for them.

None of this discredits the value of economic growth, which, as Easterbrook
shows, has made life better for countless millions and can continue to do so.
These problems are less serious than those of poverty and unemployment. Nor are
they always intractable. To check obesity, we can eat better and exercise more.
To control ordinary anxiety, we can recognize that some choices just don't
matter that much. Still, affluence's afflictions endure and remind us of an
eternal truth: it matters, as individuals and as a society, not just how much
wealth we have but how well we use it.

Correction: In my last column, I misspelled the name of economist Bart van Ark.
Apologies to him and readers.

© 2004 Newsweek, Inc.


-- 
"Only a zit on the wart on the heinie of progress." Copyright 1992, Frank Rice


Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1 at mindspring.com >
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