His thesis is straightforward: "Once a nation achieves a fairly comfortable standard of living, more income brings little, if any, additional happiness." The point where wealth ceases to imply more happiness is around US$10,000 per head annually -- roughly where Greece, Portugal and South Korea are today. Therefore, in terms of psychological pay-off, the benefits of globalization go overwhelmingly to the world's lower classes, nations with a per capita income under US$10,000.
Still, he concedes, even in wealthy societies the really affluent are a bit happier even if there is a per capita income level beyond which more money brings "declining utilitarian bang per buck." Even so, it raises a question: If making more money improves happiness even a bit why doesn't the US collectively get happier as it gets richer?
The answer seems to be that what gratifies people at this level is not their absolute income but their ability to point to an improved relative position -- I'm better off than Mr Jones. In this situation, one man's gain is another man's loss. A zero-sum game.
Of course, in the mad world we live in, fast economic progress for the poorer nations can at an early stage in development throw up problems that neutralize some of the happiness achieved -- pollution, crime, abandoned children and so on. As the already rich nations discovered two hundred years ago the industrial revolution can be a cruel business. If societies are sensible -- as say South Korea, Botswana and Taiwan have been and as say Brazil and Nigeria are not -- they will learn some lessons from the 18th century experience of the rich world -- most importantly to favor the development of small farmers, the education of young girls and the concentration of resources in the villages not cities.
There is a lot we now know about achieving happiness. Whether we want to apply it is a political judgement. At the moment things don't look propitious. George W. Bush and his mother might momentarily be about to experience some brief personal high but neither seems to have a clue about helping make the world a happier place.
Jonathan Power is a freelance journalist based in London
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