Pursuing Happiness

by Lebergott, Stanley

• ISBN13: 9780691025995
• ISBN10: 0691025991
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1996-02-01
• Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr

Summary

Whether watching baseball or undergoing heart surgery, Americans have bought a variety of goods and services to achieve happiness. Here is a provocative look at what they have chosen to purchase. Stanley Lebergott maintains that the average consumer has behaved more reasonably than many distinguished critics of "materialism" have suggested. He sees consumers seeking to make an uncertain and often cruel world into a pleasanter and more convenient place--and, for the most part, succeeding. With refreshing common sense, he reminds us of what many "luxuries" have meant, especially for women: increased income since 1900 has been used largely to lighten the backbreaking labor once required by household chores.

Table of Contents

List of Tables and Figure
Preface
Economic Well-Being
Consumers and Their Critics	p. 3
Happiness and Economic Welfare	p. 12
Consumer Choice: Advertising	p. 16
Consumer Choice: Externalities, Varieties	p. 21
Consumption Inequality	p. 28
Immortality and the Budget Constraint	p. 34
Per Capita Consumption and the Angel of the Lord	p. 41
Women's Work: Home to Market	p. 50
Work, Overwork, and Consumer Spending	p. 61
More Goods: The Twentieth Century	p. 69
Major Trends, 1900-1990
Food	p. 77
Tobacco	p. 84
Alcohol	p. 87
Clothing	p. 90
Shoes	p. 93
Housing	p. 95
Fuel	p. 104
Domestic Service	p. 108
Household Operation	p. 110
Water	p. 117
Lighting	p. 119
Health	p. 121
Transport	p. 128
Recreation	p. 135
Welfare	p. 140
Religion	p. 142
Postscript	p. 145
Appendix A: Personal Consumption Table	p. 147
Appendix B: Estimating Details	p. 165
Works Cited	p. 171
Index	p. 187
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