But in comparison to the potential which productivity growth has given us to have more free time, very little of this has been taken. In fact less than we saw in the 75 years before the Second World War. We as societies, the advanced capitalist countries, have increasingly been on a cycle of what I call 'work and spend' in which productivity growth gets more or less automatically translated into higher incomes. We go through a continual cycle of upgrading our expectations of what is necessary for a decent life. And so nobody is getting better off in any very profound sense.
Happiness correlates very poorly with increases in standards of living over time.
Now, it turns out that lots of people are beginning to figure this out. Live a life not of work and spend, but one in which they are trading in a significant way money for time. These people are not primarily motivated by ecology, except the real extremes of this group I would say, but they are mainly motivated by the excessive pace of life within the consumer treadmill. That high speed, high pace of life is very commonly translated at a very great level for people to a feeling of being out of control. Contrary to what one might think an alternative perspective which would be, is that the speed gives us a feeling of mastery and control.