Columns

Bry Jones argues the affirmative while Jack Montgomerie argues the negative.
Affirmative
 

Pink Floyd had it right when they said “get a good job with more pay and then you’ll be okay”. It is a happy thought that happiness is distinct from the evils of money, that utility is not simply dictated by fiscal comfort but, put bluntly, it just isn’t true.
 

Cash is an addiction; we need it, it drives us, it fuels nearly all human endeavour. Why else are we here at university sacrificing the primes of our lives, if not to be better placed among our peers to get a job once we leave? Moreover, ask yourself what your dreams are. To travel? To have a big family? To own your own island? Well friends, keep working, because you need some serious money for all these pipe dreams. As much as we like to think of ourselves as autonomous people, living in a free nation – a free world even – it is not the case. We are all controlled by money more than it bears thinking about.

 
However, in fairness, we can experience happiness without money. Much of what one sees and feels is free; love, the beauty of the sunrise, the joy of laughter, and other clichéd, yet painfully accurate, sentiments. It is these apparently more viable and wholesome sources of happiness that the negative will try to champion. However, rather than such things being omnipresent throughout all our lives, they are contingent on a certain degree of financial comfort. It is hard to claim, without sounding undeniably ridiculous, that a starving and destitute peasant from Mogadishu is happy simply because they could experience these things as we can. It seems, at least in the affirmative’s opinion, far more realistic that these impoverished folk will be thinking about their next meal and surviving the night, rather than appreciating the beauty of the Somali coastline.

 
It would be equally impotent to suggest, however, that these experiences are only available to the comfortable among us (of course the Indian orphan can find love, or the Soweto beggar can appreciate the sunrise) but the fact merely remains that without food, shelter and other basic necessities they will not be as happy as they could be in a New York penthouse apartment. New Zealanders, along with the majority of the Western world, have the ability to appreciate the intangibles that the globe offers in abundance. However, we are only able to do so because we live in comfort; the ease in which we live enables us to focus on things that those less lucky cannot.

 
It is a sad conclusion to come to but unfortunately it is a necessary one - one can appreciate some things without money, but with money euphoria is within reach.

 
Negative
 

Money can, to an extent, establish material preconditions which are conducive to happiness. However, true happiness comes from our mental rather than material circumstances.

 
Let’s start with what we know about money. Even if you’re not a BCom, you probably know that money can be used to buy things. We like money for the things it can get us. Even currency collectors, who appreciate the beauty of money, are to an extent interested in the value of their rare coins and notes. So if money were able to buy happiness, it would be as a result of the things it can get us. So the moot really is “can things alone make us truly happy?” Arguably, some material preconditions are necessary for happiness. It’s hard to be happy when your stomach, wardrobe (if you have one) and cheque account are empty. In that sense, money can make us less unhappy.

 
It does not follow, however, that more material items mean more happiness. Your mental health, what you do with your time and how you perceive your situation each affect your happiness at least as much as the conditions in which you live. Money is only part of these conditions. Research consistently shows that high earners are only marginally happier than people on lower incomes. If money really bought happiness, that scale would be linear not logarithmic, the Bahrainis (who have roughly the same GDP per capita as New Zealand) wouldn’t be in the streets and the kids on Jersey Shore (who have everything they could want) wouldn’t end up yelling at each other “I’m just trying to have fun!”
 

In fact, although money can make it easier for us to enjoy the important things in life, the hedonistic treadmill it puts us on can make it more difficult to experience pleasure. Quoidbach et al (2010) observed that showing people a picture of money made them less likely to appear to enjoy eating a piece of chocolate. Granted, you need money for chocolate, but money itself isn’t what makes us happy.

 
The truth is that we need much more than money to make us happy. We’re social animals and we need good relationships with those around us. Money can’t buy that; just ask Colonel Gaddafi. We need self-respect and a healthy state of mind. Money can’t buy that either; just ask Charlie Sheen. To be truly happy, we need to feel free. That’s something money can’t buy.