The clinical psychologist and author, Oliver James, offers one answer. He recently recalled a discussion at the ICA about the hedonism of the ecstasy generation. It was immediately dismissed. Yet for James it went to the heart of the matter. Or put another way, advanced consumer capitalism is creating a low serotonin society.
Advanced capitalism requires constant economic growth.
Constant economic growth depends upon the creation of new markets. The end result is that we're ceaselessly pressured to define ourselves by what we consume, what we own, how we look. Among the welter of research backing such claims, are a series of experiments by the US psychologist Douglas Kenrick. In one, students were shown slides of models and 'ordinary' people. For both male and female students, viewing models from their own sex resulted in a lowering of mood.