Contents this month
The Travails of Wealth
In his novel The Rich Boy Scott FitzGerald wrote “Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me.” In response to this Ernest Hemingway is supposed to have quipped “Yes, they have more money.”
Last month Dialogue by Design had an unusual opportunity to find out more about the very rich. We were asked to facilitate a delicate meeting held on the private estate of one of the United Kingdom’s richest families – and by rich I mean billions, not mere millions.
It was a curious experience. The deer park, 12 miles round, was a little larger than mine; the art and sculpture fabulous; the food rather better than you find in most London restaurants; and there were hot and cold running servants behind every chair (though the hot water, one participant complained, was in short supply: a reassuring departure from perfection).
The hosts were delightful and not at all grand: they had that enviable ability to put the awestruck at immediate ease. My favourite moment was seeing the delight with which they used a bubble-blowing machine to entertain the dog: you do not need to be a millionaire to have such pleasures.
So are they different from the rest of us? Yes - and no. When the meeting reached a tricky point about fund-raising, you could sense the participants trying not to think that the host could solve the problem with one twitch of the cheque book and not even notice; and perhaps the host was wondering what the problem was.
One of the perennial questions about wealth is whether it makes people happier. I have been doing some research on this as part of a wider attempt to understand what makes people happy and therefore possibly more generous in the spirit with which they approach contentious issues. If you are interested, the guru in the field of positive psychology is Martin Seligman, and his website www.authentichappiness.org is well worth a visit.
Seligman’s book, Authentic Happiness (Nicholas Brealey 2003), which artfully straddles the divide between popular and academic psychology, summarises his research:
“….if you want to lastingly raise your level of happiness by changing the external circumstances of your life, you should do the following:
- Live in a wealthy democracy, not an impoverished dictatorship (a strong effect)
- Get married (a robust effect, but perhaps not causal)
- Avoid negative events and negative emotion (only a moderate effect)
- Acquire a rich social network (a robust effect, but perhaps not causal)
- Get religion (a moderate effect).
He goes on to say:
“As far as happiness and life satisfaction are concerned, however, you needn’t bother to do the following:
- Make more money (money has little or no effect once you are comfortable enough to buy this book, and more materialistic people are less happy)
- Stay healthy (subjective health, not objective health matters)
- Get as much education as possible (no effect)
- Change your race or move to a sunnier climate (no effect).”
Seligman notes that these range from the impossible to the inconvenient, and emphasises that even if you could alter these external circumstances they account for no more than between 8 and 15 per cent of the variance of happiness, while about 50 per cent is down to genetic disposition. The remaining 35-40 per cent of your happiness quotient depends on changing your internal circumstances, and the rest of the book explores what exactly his research has revealed about this.
The conclusions of happiness research make uncomfortable reading for governments, wedded as they are to economic growth, public health, and increasing education. It is difficult to imagine any mainstream political party campaigning for our release from the hedonic treadmill on the grounds that it will make us happier.
For those of us focused on making progress in a difficult meeting, however, the insights of positive psychology are potentially important. And the next time I am forced to enjoy the deer park and the amazing food and the wonderful art, I will remember the main downside to having a lot of money – the paranoia that can stem from the fear of losing it.
Andrew Acland
