On 5/30/07, Doug Henwood <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Do people still read The Joyless Economy? What do PEN-Lers think of it, 30 years after it was published?<
I doubt that many economists read it. By coincidence, I am in the middle of reading it. One problem with it is that it is 30 years old and the world has changed a lot. It's about how affluence isn't making Americans happy. Nowadays, it seems, most people would like some of this affluence to see if it would make them happy. It's also advocating a "European" life-style that now seems to have been taken up by yuppies and middle-class types, focusing more on the quality of food, etc., and less on being merely comfortable. His book is based on a survey of psychology (of the sort that almost all economists avoid completely, because it might undermine their belief in utility maximization). His big contrast is between "comfort" and "stimulation." We USians go for the former, while Europeans go much more for the latter. He thinks that we'd do better to imitate the Europeans (as many have since the book was written). I checked out the reviews in economics journals. The main criticism is that S rejected a key pillar of "consumer sovereignty," i.e., the idea that consumers know what's best for themselves. Another review basically said that S presented a "straw man" image of neoclassical economics. That's silly, since S was an expert in the subject. One problem (from the economist's point of view) is that S isn't very good at summarizing his views. He doesn't present a model, not to mention summarizing bullet points. If I were to use economic jargon to summarize his perspective, it would be that there exist more than one maximization point for consumers. We in the US maximize utility, but we haven't chosen the _global_ equilibrium the way the Europeans have. -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
