Happiness: Lessons from a New Science - Brossura

Layard, Richard

Brossura

ISBN 10: 0143037013 ISBN 13: 9780143037019

Casa editrice: Penguin Group USA, 2006

Riassunto

Draws on a range of scientific research in such fields as psychology, sociology, and applied economics that reveals how everyday people are no happier than they were fifty years ago in spite of higher wages, in a study that seeks to define happiness while identifying its causes and the means that are available to everyday individuals to pursue and acquire happiness. Reprint. 30,000 first printing.

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L'autore:

Richard Layard is one of Britain's best-known economists and a leading world expert on unemployment and inequality. He runs Europe's leading economics research center within the London School of Economics. He worked for the British government as an economic adviser from 1997 to 2001, and in 2000 he became a member of the House of Lords. He is the author of a number of academic books.

Estratto. © Riproduzione autorizzata. Diritti riservati.:

Nought’s had, all’s spent,
Where our desire is got without content.
—Lady Macbeth

There is a paradox at the heart of our lives. Most people want more income and strive for it. And yet, as our societies become richer, people get no happier.

This is no old wives’ tale. It is a fact, proven by countless pieces of scientific research. We now have many good ways to measure how happy people are, as I’ll show, and all the evidence tells us that on average people have grown no happier over the last fifty years. At the same time, though, average incomes have more than doubled. This paradox is true for the United States, Britain and Japan.

But aren’t peoples’ lives infinitely more comfortable? Indeed: They have more food, more clothes, more cars, bigger houses, more central heating, more foreign holidays, a shorter working week, nicer work, and, above all, better health. And yet they are not happier. Despite all the efforts of governments, teachers, doctors, and businessmen, human welfare has not improved.

This devastating fact should be the starting point for all discussion of how to improve our lot. It should cause every government to reappraise its objectives and every individual to rethink his or her goals.

One thing is clear: Once subsistence income is guaranteed, making people happier is not easy. If we want people to be happier, we really have to know what conditions generate happiness and how to cultivate them. That is what this book is about—the causes of happiness and the means we have to effect it.

We do not know all the answers, or even half of them. But we have a lot of evidence—enough to rethink government policy and to reappraise our personal choices and philosophy of life.

The main evidence comes from the new psychology of happiness. But neuroscience, sociology, economics, and philosophy all play their part. By bringing them together, we can produce a new vision of how we can live better—both as social beings and in terms of our inner lives.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Penguin Group USA
• Data di pubblicazione: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0143037013
• ISBN 13: 9780143037019
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero di pagine: 310