Seminar “Manifesto For Happiness: Constructing a Relational Society”
On September 25, 2018, Waseda University’s Global Asia Research Center hosted a public seminar by Professor Stefano Bartolini, Associate Professor at the University of Siena, Italy. The seminar was chaired by Dr. Yoshihiro Nakano – the translator of the book to Japanese language. Mr. Tadaaki Ooe, the representative from Common Publishing Inc., was also present for the event.
In this public seminar, Professor Bartolini presented the key ideas within his book and critically examined the economic growth model that caused the rise of the relational poverty in our society. It has become clear that economic growth alone is not enough make people happy. Using data sets collected from the U.S, Professor Bartolini showed an alarming increase in rate of anxiety and drug epidemics. More and more people are getting prescriptions from their psychiatrists. This problem is not limited to developed countries, as data also showed how life satisfaction in China has dropped by 7.1% (1990 – 2007), and 7.6% for India (1999 – 2006).
While economic growth does have positive effects on human happiness, it comes at the cost of other relational goods and gives rise to more social comparison. People with poor relationships tend to get envious more, and try to compare with others around them. Poverty with relational goods also causes people to work more to fill in the void. This in turn makes them have less time to invest in social relationships. Thus, it creates an unending vicious cycle of social crisis.
Professor Bartolini then introduced the concept of defensive growth to explain the relationship between social crisis and economic dynamism. This explains how people readily spend more to replace the common goods damaged or lost in the course of economic development (environment, trust, social fabric, etc.). With the decrease of trust, many societies now face an increasing need for security and social control. People spend more to find comfort in a socially isolated environment, which continues to drive economic growth, albeit a defensive one.
Over the years, people have gradually become more materialistic as well. There is a higher priority for extrinsic motivations (money, fame, grades, etc.) and lower priority for intrinsic motivations (curiosity, challenge, cooperation, etc.). Professor Bartolini asserted that the spread of materialism was a major effect of the advertisement industry. This industry has a deep understanding on how to exploit social comparison and envy to influence viewers. Since happy people do not consume products, it is important for the advertisement to make them unhappy until they want new products. Thus, economic prosperity is achieved by the organized creation of dissatisfaction.
To conclude his lecture, Professor Bartolini acknowledged that there was no one easy solution for the problem. However, we can start making initiatives to fix the decline of relational goods through changing our approach to work and life, healthcare, media and so on. After the seminar, the audience engaged in an informal discussion session with Professor Bartolini. Participants were impressed by his thought-provoking presentation and insight into current social-economic problems.