A couple of years ago there was a book published over here: Oliver James - Britain on the Couch: why we are unhappier than we were in the Fifties, despite being richer. It's a good read, presenting a whole range of reasons for the depression and anxiety that marks contemporary Western societies. For me, the way in which as these societies have become "more developed" they've produced apparently greater unhappiness is perhaps the most damning criticism of them, that brutally negates the claims of improvment and betterment that have been used as the justification for this development.
