I tried to post this one last week, but the system failed for some reason.

Suffering from affluenza?

A new twist on the age-old conundrum why money doesn't make people happy is discussed here:

http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/politicsphilosophyandsociety/0,,1999599,00.html

Quote:

So why are we, in James's words, so fucked up? It's because of what James calls Selfish Capitalism, or, more catchily, "Affluenza", a virus-like condition that spreads through affluent countries. In these countries, notably English-speaking ones, people define themselves by how much money they make. They are also ruled by superficial values - how attractive they look, how famous they are, how much they are able to show off. As the sociologist Erich Fromm would have put it, we have moved from a state of "being" to a state of "having". Now we are obsessed with what other people think of us, and we've lost touch with our own feelings.