When I was a student, a friend of mine fantasized about gaining 100 pounds a day. It seemed an incomprehensibly large amount; he just couldn’t imagine spending enough to deplete such wealth. That was nearly 30 years ago – the fantasy equivalent today would be over £200 a day.
My friend, who lived with his parents, was both naive and wise. Your dream income is about twice the average UK salary, several times the global average and about a hundred times the global poverty line. How much does a person really need?
Economists have offered several answers over the years. In his famous essay “Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren,” John Maynard Keynes argued that if incomes were to increase eightfold from 1930s levels “the economic problem can be solved, or at least be in sight of a solution.”
Yields have increased as much as he predicted, but no solution is in sight. This may be because, as Keynes also noted, there is an insatiable desire for needs that make us “feel superior to . . . our fellow men.”
Which is better: having $10 million or $100 billion?
Just over a decade ago, Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton, both winners of the Nobel Prize in Economics, discovered that US$75,000 a year (more than US$100,000 today, or R$540,000 – roughly the dream income of the my friend) were enough to optimize everyday experiences. More money than that would do no good to reduce the time people felt anxious, stressed or sad.
However, there is another measure of happiness: do people rate their lives as satisfying? By this definition, Deaton and Kahneman found no limits to the uses of money: extra income, at any level, was correlated with higher levels of life satisfaction.
More recently, psychologists Paul Bain and Renata Bongiorno shifted focus: instead of asking how much money was enough, they invited survey participants to imagine an absolutely ideal life.
Then they asked how much money would it take to achieve this life if it came in the form of a lottery prize. These lottery prizes ranged from $10,000 (for those whose absolutely ideal life involves changing curtains and upholstery) to $100 billion (for those whose absolutely ideal life involves a lot of drama about buying Twitter).
Most people, however, did not prefer the main prize. A $10 million lottery prize was a popular choice.
Because? One possibility is that no one has a clue how to answer the survey question, and $10 million was the central answer, a thousand times more than the minimum and a thousand times less than the maximum.
Another is that people are as naive as my friend. They don’t realize that after buying a better house and a better car, paying off their debts and putting together an ample retirement, they would find that they could actually use a few million more dollars.
A life without challenges – and of transformed relationships
Writer Malcolm Gladwell has another theory. As a guest on the “No Such Thing As A Fish” podcast, Gladwell argued that the problem with $100 billion is that you have unlimited choices. Simple decisions (pack a lunch or buy a sandwich?) become impossibly complex (dinner in Paris or Copenhagen, or just ask my personal chef to prepare something on my plane?). Life is cognitively overwhelming.
Another problem, says Gladwell, is that all challenge is removed from life. Do you like collecting stamps, or key chains, or Beanie Babies? Forget it! You can buy them all, and before that lunch in Copenhagen if you wish.
The real problem is that being a multibillionaire would change your relationship with any other human being.
My own opinion is a little different. I don’t want $100 billion, but cognitive overload is not the problem. I’m pretty sure billionaires aren’t overwhelmed by the prospect of lunch. And while projects are important they are also scalable.
If you like to collect key chains, switch to collecting artwork: even with $100 billion to spend, the project to found the world’s largest private museum is likely to move forward.
The real problem is that being a multibillionaire would change your relationship with any other human being. Keynes knew that we often want to feel a little “superior to our fellow men,” but when superiority becomes extreme, you become the target of kidnappers, terrorists, fraudsters, and gold diggers of all kinds. Few of your relationships are likely to survive.
Can you really trust those who survive?
Does money buy absolutely everything?
Bain and Buongiorno, the researchers who found that people would rather have $10 million to $100 billion, argue that their result offers hope for sustainable development because it suggests that people do not have unlimited material needs. Perhaps.
I draw a different conclusion. The richest people in past societies had material needs that they couldn’t satisfy, but that we can: air conditioning, air travel, antibiotics… Our descendants may have material needs that we rarely think about because they are beyond our reach, from teleportation to eternal youth.
The best hope for sustainable development is not to stop wanting things that we currently cannot have. It’s just that most of what we value is not a matter of money.
My friend, with his fantasies of earning 100 pounds a day, liked to drink beer and listen to music with the gang. It was a convivial lifestyle. In contrast, life with $100 billion must be terribly lonely.
Translated by Luiz Roberto M. Gonçalves
Chad-98Weaver, a distinguished author at NewsBulletin247, excels in the craft of article writing. With a keen eye for detail and a penchant for storytelling, Chad delivers informative and engaging content that resonates with readers across various subjects. His contributions are a testament to his dedication and expertise in the field of journalism.
