What's wrong with consumer capitalism : The joyless economy after twenty years
Abstract The Joyless Economy seeks to explain the paradox of rising consumption and pervasive dissatifaction, and is thus often cited as a critique of consumer society. Yet it is rather ambivalent as critique. A less ambivalent critique would be predicated on the existence of biases toward private consumption as against public consumption, savings, free time, and the environment. These biases result from two sources: the importance of social comparison and the non‐existence of a market in working hours. Because positional competitions occur far more readily around visible private consumer goods, these take a privileged place in expenditures. This process is compounded by the fact that employers systematically deny opportunities to trade income for leisure.