“An economy primarily driven by growth must generate discontent.”

Our current economic system is one that relies on constant growth. It sustains itself by breeding discontent; making sure that we’re never quite happy with what we have or where we stand and thereby encouraging us to try in vain to buy our way out of it.

The Poverty of Affluence talks of how aspirations of upward social mobility remove what once were strong connections to a place and context in favour of a “better” material standard of living. It puts us in a cycle where we battle to stay feeling secure through improving our material wealth; buying things that promise to bring us security and contentment but fail to deliver either.

“Our overriding stress on productivity and growth and the toll it takes on our health and well-being are part of a tragically unnecessary treadmill on which we run, ever more desperately, with ever more strain, committing more and more of our lives to the hopeless chase to keep up.”

As he notes later in the book, any way of life that does not align with the economic mainstream is a difficult one to maintain since everything is built around it. There are no social structures that support turning your back on the cycle of working more to buy more stuff, no clear alternative paths to a more meaningful life.

In an article for The Guardian in 2022 about the effects of the technology and particularly social media on our attention spans, Johann Hari wrote:

“At the moment it’s as though we are all having itching powder poured over us all day, and the people pouring the powder are saying: “You might want to learn to meditate. Then you wouldn’t scratch so much.” Meditation is a useful tool – but we actually need to stop the people who are pouring itching powder on us.”

It stuck with me because it’s rare to see our discontent framed as anything other than our own fault.