"Are Happiness & Income Related?"

DOES MONEY BUY HAPPINESS?

Justin Wolfers, first says he is an empiricist and shows many graphs which show the high correlation between happiness and income relative to twenty-five countries. For many of his empirical information it seems that there is a high correlation between income and happiness, however correlation does not always prove causation.

Robert Frank argues that while money can buy happiness it does not buy it to the extent at which we think it does. Frank argues that in one hundred years we will all be saying that Charles Darwin is the founder of economics. I found this very interesting, Frank continued to argue that Darwin's "survival of the fittest" theory shows through within economics in relation to competition. He also states that the brain from the Darwin point of view is supposed to not just be happy, but it's main job is to get you to do what it takes to pass your genes to the "next round". Your brain does this however by prompting negative feelings which get you to a position to get your genes further. Frank says that pleasure and happiness is the fleeting when you move from discomfort to comfort; it is not our goal to maximize pleasure through life.

I found both arguments very persuasive but found myself leaning more towards Frank's point of view than Wolfers', which was surprising because I feel I would normally lean towards empirical information. Frank's theories seem to make sense within many societies and his examples highly illustrate this. I still am unsure as to whether money really does buy happiness and if so to what extent but this has prompted me to do more research and look into the theory of Darwin creating economics, not Adam Smith and the Invisible Hand. Overall I found this debate very interesting and eye-opening in many ways for me personally having lived and visited in many different countries. This definitely sparked my interest.