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I welcome the credit crunch with open arms," says Oliver James, a psychologist and broadcaster. According to Mr James, author of Affluenza, as people have got richer, they have focused more on acquiring material goods and less on the things that really matter in life. This has made them unhappy. If I understand Mr James correctly, the credit crunch will make them happier by reducing the amount of money they have to pursue these undesirable goals.
This new hair-shirtism - the view that recession is good for you - is increasingly common. According to the Bishop of Manchester, for instance, "The good thing is that this collapse of the god of materialism and consumerism is forcing us to think again." Hair-shirtism chimes not just with Christianity's enthusiasm for redemption through suffering, but also with environmentalism's hostility to consumption and socialism's belief in the validity of needs, not wants. I've therefore heard it propounded by a wide range of different people.
Hair-shirtism is favoured more by the rich than by the poor. A film director with a house worth many millions of pounds and a career that is likely to earn him as much again this year explained it to me at dinner the other night. The problem with society, he said, was that cheap credit had allowed people to spend too much, and thus lose touch with reality. The economic crisis would allow them to feel more grounded. I don't think he was including himself among those he felt would benefit from having less money.
I have two problems with hair-shirtism. First, according to many studies, people get happier, not unhappier, as they get richer. Rich countries are, by and large, happier than poor ones; and, within countries, better-off people are, by and large, happier than worse-off ones. Happiness is trickier to study over time: it's hard to measure, for instance, how much depression there used to be in the past, because doctors were less likely to diagnose it. Still, the fact that the suicide rate has fallen over the past 50 years suggests to me that there may be fewer unhappy people around today. That may, or may not, be the result of greater prosperity; but either way, making people suddenly poorer doesn't seem to me a recipe for making them happier.
Second, recessions don't work in the way the hair-shirtists would like them to. Hair-shirtists want everybody to be a bit poorer, so they can't buy DVDs or take holidays in the sun, and have to amuse themselves instead by playing Old Maid and going on country rambles in the rain. I agree that it would be better if that were how recessions worked. But it's not. What actually happens is that most people keep their jobs, and are fine. In some ways, life gets better for them: prices fall and haircuts, taxis, babysitters and restaurant tables are more easily available. But for a sizeable minority, life becomes truly terrible. They lose their jobs, their incomes, their houses, and often, in consequence, their marriages and their self-respect.
Recessions do not make people finer, more spiritual human beings. They destroy lives. They are not to be welcomed.
The daddy of all mysteries
It is not just at Christmas that a story of unknown paternity brings joy to mankind, for such tales provide grist to the rumour-mills that feed the gossip columnists. Rachida Dati, France's justice minister, has given birth to a baby girl and has neglected to tell the world who the father is. Jose Maria Aznar, the former Spanish prime minister, Bernard Laporte, the French sports minister, and Dominic Desseigne, chairman of the Barrière casino and hotel group, have all publicly denied paternity. So, I suspect, would Barack Obama, Osama bin Laden and the Pope, if anybody asked them. The scope is endless.
Everybody needs green neighbours
Recycling is in trouble because China no longer wants to buy our old paper and bottles. That's bad news, for individuals as well as the planet. People need ways of judging their neighbours. Peeling paint? Feckless types. Noisy children? Bad parents.
Recycling has become a handy measure of social responsibility. Bung everything into one bin? Selfish planet boilers. Colour-coded bins for paper, glass, plastic and compost? Upstanding greenies. If recycling goes the way of the rest of the economy, how will we know with whom we can safely share a pot of loose-leaf herbal tea?
* Emma Duncan is deputy editor of The Economist.
Reader views (1)
At last some commonsense and understanding of the subject.Unfortuneately bishops do not risk having to sign on at the job centre; it might be a good idea for the CoE to restructure its workforce to cope with falling demand for its services.This might lead to a little more humility and compassion on the part of its senior ranks for the commercial and industrial victims of the recession.
- Eric Stables, United Kingdom, 06/01/2009 20:20
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