Monet can buy “stress free lifestyle” which happiness is a byproduct
Apparently there was a study done and your happiness levels out. Like if you got a big pay bump you’d be happier for a while but then back to baseline.
My boss used this to say that we don’t need raises. I asked if we could prove it and me and her swap pays. She laughed and brushed me off.
There have been studies that claim there is a max on what money can buy you in terms of happiness. Before it was said to be 70k (of course depends on the country), now it might be 500k.
Yeah, cost of living has been shot in favour of profit optimizing algorithms
Money buys you the luxury of beeing in the position where money can’t contribute to your happiness any longer.
Money can’t buy you happiness. But it can damn well enable it.
Money does buy you happiness. It just has diminishing returns.
So the best way to maximize happiness is to take the money from those that have maximized its effect and give it all to the poor.
Money absolutely does buy happiness until you’re in middle class and in a fulfilling job. (If you’re rich but in a shit job, it means you might have the option to work less or look for a better position.)
Money does not buy you happiness applies to people who are already rich and are looking for money to fulfill needs way high on the Maslow hierarchy. In fact, much of the tyranny and cruelty within stratified social systems comes from miserable rich people believing they should be happy due to their vast wealth and power yet are not. And our capitalist society has messages everywhere that promise that a new car, (yacht, vacation, lover, religion, etc.) will totally fulfill them and they don’t.
I mean we’ve had three billionaires shoot themselves into space. If that’s not an obvious plead to the gods or the cosmos for a taste of nirvana I don’t know what is.
Curiously, this is a thing that Jesus (and every other divine-ish wise guy) knew about: If we give away our vast fortune and live simply with that experience and wisdom, fulfillment comes. But it means overcoming greed for wealth and power, which is quicker, easier, more seductive.
ETA: For those of us outside the ownership class, though, money improves our base Maslow hierarchy (better housing, HVAC, better water, better food) and gets us out of precarity (or worse, scarcity) which make us desperate and miserable (which accounts completely for elevated crime in poor neighborhoods). Money buys us out of that hell hole. The only thing better than not being there is to also have the perspective of not being there, which can lead to maybe helping others behind you out… Unless you’re Clarence Thomas. (He’s a very special case.)
Money of course can buy happiness. Can subcribe to YT Music forever, can pay for therapy, can pay for everything. :,-)
Digital piracy can get you at least one of those happy things.
access to culture should be free, access to mental health should be free
I do have terrible crushing problems money can’t solve.
but I would be a hell of a lot happier with lowish 6 figures a year.
The thing is, it’s true that money can’t buy you happiness. I can guarantee you that I would still be depressed after a salary increase. I actually think the majority of wealthy people are fucking miserable.
However, money can buy you a lot of other helpful shit and its importance should not be downplayed.
But I have always interpreted “Money can’t buy happiness” to mean that accumulating wealth beyond what you need to survive and be comfortable won’t actually make your life meaningfully better. And that’s true. Happiness levels off after a certain level of wealth.
“Money can’t buy happiness” is a warning only intended for people who already have enough money to meet their basic needs. It’s bad faith to say it to people who are struggling financially. It’s kind of like saying, “Food won’t bring you happiness.” It has a different meaning depending on whether you are saying it to an emotional overeater or someone who is starving and malnourished.
Money isn’t sufficient for happiness, but it’s usually necessary.
I too, eat lentils.
If you learn to live on lentils, you won’t have to be subservient to the king.
The things you own end up owning you.
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*pay increase above actual inflation/bill increases.
My pay has gone up every year, but each year I end up poorer as my bills eat the extra, plus some more!
Yes. Financial independence would give ample time for me to escape abuse but alas, I’m trapped under family’s false insights and paranoia.
“Money can’t buy happiness, but it can make you awfully comfortable while you’re being miserable.”
~~Clare Boothe Luce
Money can’t solve all your problems but it can solve most of them.
The problems of poverty might be easier to deal with. Not discounting that. But a salary increase under capitalism does not solve the fundamental depression you feel from alienation.
Not to say I don’t have it better. I do. But the emptiness is not solved by a higher wage. It only has allowed me to have the time to become more reflective and depressed by the alienation of my labor.
To have more time and freedom to reflect on the suffering of these systems that I benefit from more than others do.
