Rating: 
Summary: A book of two halves¿read the second
Review: The first half of this book is a sprawling survey of the West's remarkable achievements. It is thorough in its explanation of how well off we are and at times it is inspiring. It does not need to be 200+ pages-the several times in the second 200 pages where the author reiterates this theme are all one needs to get the point. Instead, half of the text is just repetition. This is only bearable because the second half is actually rich with insight and ideas. These ideas, paralleled in other progressive social analysis (E. Robert Morse comes to mind), are brought forth with admirable perspective. The reader will note that the diversity of resources is as abundant as the diversity of ideas that span from the over-arching happiness theme to individualism, consumerism, stress, gratefulness and responsibility.It is curious that when the text does get intriguing, inconsistencies become obvious. The most obvious inconsistency is seen when the author states that material well-being is not a source of happiness, "money and material things cannot make us happy," but that to gain happiness we should expand material well-being to others. Focus is easily lost because of these inconsistencies. The author's scientizing everything-"collapse anxiety," "revolution of satisfied expectations"-doesn't help clear things up either. It is safe to say that there isn't a focus in this book or at least that there isn't a consistent theory offered in it. At points the reader will be aching for one. But, in all, the piece is well-written and even though one might be left hanging, he's thankful for the variety of thoughts just collected.
Rating: 
Summary: Disgruntled in the Midst of Plenty
Review: The next time someone tells you gloomily that the world is going to hell in a handbasket, do him a favor: Tuck a copy of Gregg Easterbrook's "The Progress Paradox" in his ill-fated luggage and send him on his way. You will save the breath of a rebuttal, and the book will speak for itself. Mr. Easterbrook offers a bracing reminder of what is too often forgotten but difficult to deny: In the West in the past 50 years, life has gotten steadily better. The evidence is overwhelming. In the U.S. alone real income has more than doubled since 1960. It is true that the rich have gotten richer, but the real story, Mr. Easterbrook notes, is "the rise in well-being for the typical person." Some 70% of Americans now own the place they live, as opposed to fewer than 20% a century ago. Their homes and apartments are larger and more comfortable, too, with once rare or unheard of amenities like central heat and air conditioning. Whereas undernourishment was common until recently, today our biggest problem with food is that we eat too much of it -- and for much longer: Average life expectancy has nearly doubled since 1900, and it keeps rising. Remember when flying was a privilege of the "jet set"? Well, 200 million Americans boarded a plane in the past five years, one example among many that former luxuries are now a part of everyday life. If the Western world has ever known a Golden Age, Mr. Easterbrook claims, "it is right here, right now." He tells this story with the lively wit and contrarian insight that is a regular feature of his articles in the New Republic, where he serves as a senior editor. But if the evidence for a revolution in living standards is really so overwhelming -- and it is -- then why aren't people happier? This is the "paradox" of our recent progress, and it is one that Mr. Easterbrook sets out to explain and even resolve. It is an ambitious undertaking, if not new. Since at least the middle of the 18th century, when Jean-Jacques Rousseau argued that the progress of civilization added "nothing to our genuine felicity," social observers have attempted to find a gauge of human happiness. The British reformer Jeremy Bentham called this "felicific calculus." Sociologists today prefer the term "subjective well-being," asking people in extensive questionnaires how they feel about their lives. Mr. Easterbrook cites this data to show that the number of people in America who describe themselves as "very happy" has decreased slightly since 1950 (to 6% from 7.5%) and that the percentage of those who consider themselves "happy" has remained at 60%. Meanwhile, the incidence of depression seems to have increased sharply, which leads Mr. Easterbrook to the paradox referred to in his title: Life gets better; people feel worse. The conclusion is questionable. As Mr. Easterbrook acknowledges, the data on subjective well-being is, well, subjective, making it difficult to draw firm conclusions about levels of happiness across the ages. Mr. Easterbrook himself retreats from this claim after the title page, presenting the problem slightly differently: Despite material progress, people don't seem to be getting happier. He suggests a number of causes: from the media's myopic focus on disaster to the stress of modern living to what he calls "collapse anxiety," the fear that our hard-won gains may come crashing down. More boldly, he draws on the tenets of a new discipline known as Positive Psychology -- the study of what makes people happy, not sad -- to offer suggestions for improving the way we feel. Citing the positive effects on mood of gratitude and forgiveness, he argues that there is indeed power in positive thinking, and in moral and spiritual endeavor. To make ourselves feel better, he says, we might begin by making the world better. For him that means working to eradicate domestic poverty, bring about universal health care and reduce global underdevelopment. Everyone will have his own list. This is commendable advice. But there is a darker consideration that Mr. Easterbrook overlooks. Recent research suggests that our capacity for happiness has a strong genetic component and that beyond a certain "set point" of mood, which varies from person to person, there may not be much that we can do to alter the way we feel, at least permanently. For some, advances in biotechnology and psychopharmacology may hold out hope. But as Leon Kass and the other members of the President's Council on Bioethics recently warned, the temptation to use these technologies "beyond therapy" should give us pause. We will never completely resolve the paradoxes of progress by altering our genes or controlling their effects. As the pressure to do so mounts, it may be worth recalling an older paradox: Paradise was not enough to satisfy Adam and Eve.
Rating: 
Summary: The glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
Review: The optimist says the glass is half full. The pessimist says it's half empty. Engineers think the glass is twice as big as it needs to be. This book comes very close to describing my outlook on human progress. In general, things are going pretty well. Ideologues on both sides of the spectrum have an interest in overstating our problems. The first half of the book is an interesting survey of how things have improved. Then Easterbrook goes into ideas on why people still report feeling bad despite all of this progress. Finally, he offers suggestions to solving what he sees as real problems -- poverty and spiritual emptiness. While this is the best book I've read on the subject, I will point out a few things I disagree with. 1. Collapse anxiety -- Easterbrook says one reason people feel unhappy despite progress and affluence is fear that Western society as we know it will collapse and the prosperity will end. I don't think people are afraid society will collapse but rather that their lives will collapse. Easterbrook mentions how it's common to have one late-model luxury car per family member, plenty of gadgets, extra living space, and so on. To buy all of these things that are described as common, some people sacrifice planning for retirement, their children's education, or possible unforeseen illness or job loss. As a result, IMHO, they live in fear not of some cataclysm in society but rather of a minor bump in their life becoming a catastrophe due to personal debt and poor planning. 2. "Considering taxes, a person working full-time at the federal minimum would have to spend an *entire day's wages* to buy a $7 Au Bon Pain sandwich combo for lunch each business week. This simply is not right." - This is part of an anecdote Easterbrook tells about a woman who could afford to eat at McDonald's but not a more expensive place. He talks about access to high-end sandwiches as if he were talking about access to basic housing. Society will survive if people cannot buy a certain kind of sandwich. Many people spend years working at low-wage jobs and take classes in the evenings, bringing budget lunches and diners from home. Many of them eventually earn enough money to eat wherever they want. I'm all for society sacrificing to help these people succeed and get better jobs. But the fact that the worst jobs available don't provide enough money for luxuries is not a problem. 3. Easterbrook believes that the solution to poverty is to find a way for the poor to consume as much as the rich. I think that in US the problem is that society is not built around the poor. Society expects everyone to have a certain level of affluence. This level of affluence is not sustainable for everyone in the US, and certainly not for everyone in the world. Therefore, I think people should strive to live simpler lives rather than produce more. I'm not suggesting a radical change. For example, if society weren't designed around personal cars, middle-class families with multiple cars could give up one car and save several thousand dollars a year. That's not trivial for a family earning the median income. If conservation and helping people in the community in need became key values, say as key as our value of maintaining corporate earnings growth each quarter, it would feel like our society is richer even if our GDP stayed the same. Apart from these points, I agree with Easterbrook completely. I highly recommend the book. It does a good job of showing how we have overcome problems once thought insurmountable and how our problems will be solved more easily than we think. The glass is not half empty, it's just bigger than it needs to be.
Rating:
Summary: Great for the Holidays
Review: The Progress Paradox shows how prosperous our lives
are today compared to the way our parents and grandparents lived.
There is an amazing amount of information in the
book about standards of living and modern life, as well
as the research of the definition for "happiness".
Easy to read, not boring - even includes some humor.
Rating: 
Summary: Good start , then faulty analysis and hidden political views
Review: The Progress Paradox starts off with an interesting review of why, despite things being better, people seem unhappy. It's an interesting topic and the book raises some good points and observations. Having built a solid foundation demonstrating how well market economies have provided a higher standard of living and discussing the unexpected angst that has resulted, the book then veers off into a socialist agenda advocating class warfare against the rich, government control of markets, and massive government programs. All of this is hidden under a false flag of "fairness" improvements to the market system. While the early material in the book is well supported with studies and facts, the veiled political views are hyped with false analogies, hysterical language, hidden assumptions, and outright ignorance of basic economic principles. You could get the book and just throw it away after you've read the first half, but picking up a copy of P J O'Rourkes "Holidays in Hell" will provide a better read and a lot more insight into how the world really works.
Rating:
Summary: No Real Paradox
Review: There is no paradox. Yes, modern Ameriacns are awash in material things, can't get enough of them, and are on a constant quest for more. Life is better, if by better we mean there are more things around. And, as we push aside all considerations in order to get more things, we necessarily give up the life of the spirit. You cannot devote every hour you are awake to getting more and better things without paying some cost. So, where is the paradox? I suggest that far from being a paradox, the unhappiness and the disgust with modern life is the corrolary of a life spend exclusively seeking material things. Ask the material girls and material guys. So, is life better? Or, do we simply have more things and better medicine? I do not propose that we give up these things that have made life easier and allowed us to live longer. And, I certainly do not agree with the Marxist-Leninist comment in the review "Illusory Affluance", which review suggests that if only we had the gulags and the inspired leadership of Stalin we would all have an equal amount of things and no one would ever be a "wage slave". I guess we could all just give up work under his theory, once we spread the abundance around evenly. We all know how well that worked in the Soviet Union. Here is where we confront the complete and total absence of a spititual dimension in modern life. As we have acquired more and more goods, we have moved farther and farther away from the life of the spirit. Today, it is safe to say that only material things count. In the midst of all this wealth, we have witnessed the growth of amoriality. Take your pick: do we live in a pornocracy, a tortocracy, a cultocracy, or a junkocracy? More people probably attend the church of Ebay and pray at the alter of a Porno twit than lead a life in which spiritual values weight equally with material ones. Thus the author has been kind enough to point out that material things abound around us, but that all this stuff and all this glamour has failed to make us anything but distressed and unhappy. It is no paradox.
Rating:
Summary: un/progress with an interesting message
Review: This audio is entertaining and informative even though many of the conclusions are negative. The author looks at three decades of research that shows almost all aspects of Western life have vastly improved, but most men and women feel less happy than in the past. The Progress Paradox explores the reasons why ever-higher living standards don't seem to make us any happier. He also looks at humanistic "positive psychology," which seeks to understand what causes a person's sense of well-being. Easterbrook makes a compelling case that optimism, gratitude, and acts of forgiveness not only make modern life more fulfilling but are definitely in our self-interest.
Rating:
Summary: Sharing self-delusion
Review: This book illustrates the sad fact of publishing today, namely that once an author gets established, he can get anything published. This book is very light on original thinking and useful analysis, and for most people is way off the mark because the author is not in touch with reality. The author clearly buys into the contemporary culture of compulsive consumption and supports suburban sprawl with its land use gluttony.
Rating:
Summary: antidote
Review: This book is an antidote to daily headlines.
I would never have guessed that there were
positive trends happening,
underneath all the strife.
Rating:
Summary: Gregg Easterbrook has produced another winner.
Review: This book is eloquently written, with a subject that is both inspiring and troubling. Mr. Easterbrook writes about how today's population is gaining in many indicators of quality of life, yet seems to be declining in our ability to gain happiness. It's a book that will appeal to many different audiences, not just the Washington policy wonk crowd. It really makes you think about the meaning of our lives, and what we can do to make ourselves happier and America a better place for all. Plus, there's even some humor in it, which is always a plus.
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