Are those in the top 1% of wealth and success happier than most people?

[Hardkill]

I know that we've all heard from a lot of other people including Leo himself who have said that most of the people in the world who are in top 1% of wealth and success are not really happy people. However, l honestly don't totally buy that. I mean, I get that generally they aren't as happy as higher conscious and more fulfilled people, but aren't the wealthiest and most successful in the world still happier than most people in the world who have to deal with the constant burden of either being forced to work hard everyday just to live a mediocre life or are unable to survive at all?

[UDT]

Yes

[Moksha]

They don't have to struggle with the lower tiers of Maslow's hierarchy. However, because of this laisse faire reality, they also are less likely to grow. Jesus said it is harder for a camel to get through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to realize heaven.

Happiness has nothing to do with wealth, and everything to do with letting go of the attachment to wealth.

[aurum]

@Hardkill

Yes and no.

We can think of modern capitalism as a competitive game for "scarce" resources. In this competitive, scarcity based game, the 1% could be considered the winners. They have accumulated the scarce resources and all the benefits that entails.

And make no mistake, those benefits to your survival are real. As Grant Cardone loves to point out, money can't buy you happiness, but it can buy you education, food, health-care, etc. That is what incentivizes us to keep competing. If the scarce resources weren't worth anything to your survival, why play the game? If money didn't pay the bills, why work for money?

The conclusion people draw from all of this is that while money maybe can't directly buy happiness, it certainly is better in our system to be rich than poor. And in some ways they are right. It's the Wolf of Wall Street scene:

But this kind of thinking is mostly just rationalizations to increase your survival advantage in the system.

Here is what is missing:

a) That we do not have to live under an economic system based primarily on competition and artificial scarcity.

b) That under such a system which inevitably generates "winners" and "losers", the winners will always still be insecure in their position ("yeah I'm winning now, but what if I become a loser???")

c) That exploitation and extraction, of both people and planet, is inevitable under such a system

d) That highly polarized winners and losers erodes people's self-esteem

e) That personal accumulation erodes public abundance, e.g everyone owning land versus collective ownership of the commons

f) That personal accumulation fails to meet real needs past a certain point anyway

g) That such a system is unsustainable because of the inequality and social ills it generates

 

^this kind of thinking is the wisdom that seems to start to come online at SD Green.

Notice that stage Orange self-help books tend not to talk about this. Their goal is not to have you question the system itself, it's to help you become successful within the system that we have.

Those are two very different goals.

Of course, there can be some overlap. I'm not suggesting anyone reading this to stop accumulating money. But there is less incentive to talk about these issues, because talking about this does not serve your survival. It's to your survival advantage, at least in the short term, to ignore everything I've just said and assume the system we have is great. By assuming that pro-system position, you'll be rewarded with more resources by the system.

[ilja]

they are definitely stupider?

[Moksha]

10 minutes ago, datamonster said:

@Hardkill Well, at least they can buy a jetsky. I've never seen an unhappy person on a jetsky.

Happiness based on possessions, or experiences, is inevitably transient. People are always chasing it, and inevitably get disappointed in the end. The only reliable happiness is realizing the reality that cannot be threatened. It is now, and it depends on nothing beyond being.

[ilja]

@Moksha unless you are a dragon.

[Moksha]

9 minutes ago, ilja said:

@Moksha unless you are a dragon.

Which also, even the beautiful golden ones, ultimately die.

[ilja]

@Moksha not in my book moksha, not in my..

[Ninja_pig]

Happiness does not come from worldly possessions. It's less about how much you have and more about how grateful you are for what you have. If a person feels they do not have enough money even after they have enough to get by, there is no amount of money that will make them feel fulfilled. Maybe some of the very impoverished will be more stressed by the constant necessity of work and the uncertainty that comes with poverty. Even for those people though, no amount of money will make them happier at the deepest level.

Wealth can be a sign that someone may be happy, as wealth usually follows more developed and educated individuals. But people are not happy because they are wealthy.

[Hardkill]

4 hours ago, aurum said:

@Hardkill

Yes and no.

We can think of modern capitalism as a competitive game for "scarce" resources. In this competitive, scarcity based game, the 1% could be considered the winners. They have accumulated the scarce resources and all the benefits that entails.

And make no mistake, those benefits to your survival are real. As Grant Cardone loves to point out, money can't buy you happiness, but it can buy you education, food, health-care, etc. That is what incentivizes us to keep competing. If the scarce resources weren't worth anything to your survival, why play the game? If money didn't pay the bills, why work for money?

The conclusion people draw from all of this is that while money maybe can't directly buy happiness, it certainly is better in our system to be rich than poor. And in some ways they are right. It's the Wolf of Wall Street scene:

But this kind of thinking is mostly just rationalizations to increase your survival advantage in the system.

Here is what is missing:

a) That we do not have to live under an economic system based primarily on competition and artificial scarcity.

b) That under such a system which inevitably generates "winners" and "losers", the winners will always still be insecure in their position ("yeah I'm winning now, but what if I become a loser???")

c) That exploitation and extraction, of both people and planet, is inevitable under such a system

d) That highly polarized winners and losers erodes people's self-esteem

e) That personal accumulation erodes public abundance, e.g everyone owning land versus collective ownership of the commons

f) That personal accumulation fails to meet real needs past a certain point anyway

g) That such a system is unsustainable because of the inequality and social ills it generates

 

^this kind of thinking is the wisdom that seems to start to come online at SD Green.

Notice that stage Orange self-help books tend not to talk about this. Their goal is not to have you question the system itself, it's to help you become successful within the system that we have.

Those are two very different goals.

Of course, there can be some overlap. I'm not suggesting anyone reading this to stop accumulating money. But there is less incentive to talk about these issues, because talking about this does not serve your survival. It's to your survival advantage, at least in the short term, to ignore everything I've just said and assume the system we have is great. By assuming that pro-system position, you'll be rewarded with more resources by the system.

Yeah, I agree with all of those points, but which would you rather have? A wealthy or middle-class income? 

[aurum]

11 hours ago, Hardkill said:

Yeah, I agree with all of those points, but which would you rather have? A wealthy or middle-class income? 

My point was that question is reductionistic. It's not as simple as "choose wealthy or middle-class".

There are far more variables to consider. And these variables are not often discussed because of our stage Orange culture.

[whatishappeningtome]

I would bet on average yes since there is that other statistic which shows people earning 100K a year generally are much happier. Being poor fucking sucks, basically you're just desperate to survive to pay the bills, rent and keep yourself healthy. 

[DocWatts]

Saying that money doesn't buy happiness is just patently false when people's basic Survival needs in an Industrial or Post Industrial society are secured almost exclusively with money. Money is Freedom in our Society.

Almost any problem that a person may run in to in this life will be made worse without access to financial resources. Here's just a few examples that cover a wide range of life scenarios:

• Physical, mental, or emotional Health problems are much harder to manage when you're poor
• Interpersonal relationships become harder to maintain when one or both parties are consistently dealing with stress that comes from financial instability. 
• Employment at lowers levels of income tends to be less intellectually and emotionally fulfilling
• Poverty damages people psychologically in empirically verifiable ways, leading to insecure attachments throughout one's life, and difficulty with long term planning and decision making. Just look to the number of Lottery Winners who end up broke after a few years for an illustration of this.
• Personal Time to pursue one's Self Actualization goals, and live their life in an Authentic Way, is secured almost exclusively with money

While it's true that there are eventual diminishing returns once an Individual earns a set amount of Income over and above what they need to meet their needs (I've seen studies which show this to be anywhere from around $90k a year to $120k year), in general you don't see people who've had actual experience with Poverty repeating the silly notion that "money doesn't buy happiness".

Edited March 25, 2021 by DocWatts

[ilja]

@datamonster i take my happy seriously bro

[Consept]

I think its a case of diminishing returns, the difference between someone earning £15k and £55k could be massive in terms of being comfortable, productive able to not worry about survival etc. But the difference between say earning £100k and £140k would probably not make that much difference, theres not much more you could do with the higher amount that you couldnt do with the lower. So once you kind of have enough or have enough coming in, it ceases to really give you that happiness boost that youre probably looking for, which is most likely what drives people to earn more because theyre looking for that golden amount that would satisfy them but it never comes. 

Also how humans work is by comparing themselves to those around them, so in a village in India maybe the richest person earns 10k a year and feels on top of the world because theyre richer than everyone else, but someone who earns 100k in London who lives an expensive street where theyre the lowest earner, probably feels really poor in comparison. So its all very relative and subjective. Bottom line in the western world, if you can get to about 70k, more money is not going to make you happier and if you can live without comparing yourself to others that will also lead to a much more content existence 

[Meditationdude]

@datamonster ok Tosh.

 

Also lots of poor people have jet skis. Or more accurately stated, a lot of Banks have JetSkis

[Moksha]

9 hours ago, datamonster said:

I think happiness is when you don't take things too seriously

Yes, it's funny how waking up puts everything that used to bother you into perspective. The beginning of the end of suffering is the realization that there is nothing really worth chasing after, and nothing really worth resisting, because ultimately You are already infinitely abundant. Enjoy the dream, lucidly, for what it is 

[Moksha]

2 hours ago, DocWatts said:

Saying that money doesn't buy happiness is just patently false when people's basic Survival needs in an Industrial or Post Industrial society are secured almost exclusively with money.

I referred earlier to the lower levels of Maslow's hierarchy, which includes our basic survival needs. Money certainly helps with those needs. But it doesn't ensure happiness, even when those needs are met. Ever watch Desperate Housewives?  How many rich celebrities seem miserable? Conversely, how many dirt poor kids in 3rd world countries, instead of complaining about their poverty, still choose to laugh and play?

Even in the most desperate circumstances, people can find freedom from suffering. Victor Frankl speaks about this profound realization, as a prisoner in a concentration camp, in Man's Search for Meaning.

I read this recently, and completely agree:

True happiness comes from within, which means we can always find joy, in both good times and bad. Although pain and pleasure are an inevitable part of human life, suffering and happiness is entirely optional. The choice is ours. A fully Awake, fully conscious human being has the love, compassion, and energy to make change for the better whenever it's possible, the equanimity to accept what can't be changed, and the wisdom to know the difference.

- John Yates, The Mind Illuminated

[DocWatts]

57 minutes ago, Moksha said:

I referred earlier to the lower levels of Maslow's hierarchy, which includes our basic survival needs. Money certainly helps with those needs. But it doesn't ensure happiness, even when those needs are met. Ever watch Desperate Housewives?  How many rich celebrities seem miserable? Conversely, how many dirt poor kids in 3rd world countries, instead of complaining about their poverty, still choose to laugh and play?

Just to be clear, I wasn't implying that happiness is something exclusive to middle class people living in Developed Countries.

I would be confident in asserting that someone from an indigenous tribal culture in a place like Papua New Guinea is generally going to be happier than someone who's spent the last ten years of thier life working at Wal-Mart (even if they are in some ways Materially better off than the person from Papua New Guinea).

Clearly societal expectations are going to play a big role here, with Tribal societies offering cradle to grave security as well the much deeper interpersonal relationships that come from being part of a community.

Unfortunately people living in Poverty in more developed places like the US kind of have the worst of both worlds. Which is to say that they are subjected to the stressful and dehumanizing aspects of trying to meet thier survival needs in a society that doesn't care about or value them, without the same kind of communal support structures to provide them with a sense of meaning and belonging.

Hence why we're seeing so many alienated, bitter, and lonely people in places like the US.

In Industrialized Societies, ascending the socio-economic Totem Pole means becoming less vulnerable to being exploited, and spending less time and energy on having to meet Survival Needs in demeaning ways that are disconnected from what that person cares about.

Edited March 25, 2021 by DocWatts