These days the concept of ‘Buy one, get one free’ (Bogof) offered by superstores is leading to food shortages and should be prohibited. One-third of all food bought is wasted as people are enticed to buy food that is not needed and ultimately goes waste. One should also exchange their petrol-driven cars with hybrids that give better average. These cars save the energy lost during application of brakes in batteries and use it later. Banks and credit card companies encourage everyone to borrow up to their limit and then pay back slowly interest only in a way that extends the amount of interest eventually payable. True happiness comes not from unlimited consumption but from self-denial, temperance and a moderate use of the world’s goods. For instance, a petrol-driven car gives an average of 15 kilometers-a-liter while a hybrid car gives 25. It seems that use of hybrid cars will lead to less consumption and reduce man’s demands on earth’s resources. But such will not happen if the owner makes twice the amount of travel in hybrid car. This is likely since he is taught to seek happiness in consumption. Clean technologies can become vehicle for yet more increase in consumption, therefore. We see large number of CFL bulbs glowing in shopping malls.

Modern economics stands contra this happy scenario. One of the basic concepts of economics is that of utility. The basic proposition is that higher consumption leads to higher utility for the consumer. Say, the eating of one banana gives utility of 10 units. Eating of the second banana will give a utility of 8 units. The third banana will give 6 units. The utility increases along with level of consumption. After   bananas have stopped giving utility the consumer will consume clothes, music, travel or whatever. In this way ever increasing consumption will do two things: It will provide demand for goods in the market and lead to economic growth; and it will provide increasing levels of utility to the consumer. This connection between consumption and utility-or-happiness is seen in real life. Poor people, deprived of consumption, are generally less happy. They drink, play cards and indulge in wife-beating more than the rich who have more consumption.

The key to its resolution is to consider happiness not merely as a consequence of consumption but also examine its interrelationship with desires. Modern economics holds that consumption leads to happiness. But the rich who have consumption at their disposal are yet unhappy. Happiness is determined by the gap between desires and   consumption. If desires are unchanged, then more consumption leads to more happiness as in the case of poor. Increased consumption, in this case, reduces the gap between desires and consumption. The widespread unhappiness in the developed countries as seen in juvenile violence, high divorce rates, etc. is because businesses are ever creating more desires. In the result, no matter how much consumption increases, desires increase at a faster pace; the gap between consumption and desires increases and the developed countries sink into greater unhappiness despite having more consumption. It is time we write a new economics of happiness taking into account the loss, of happiness from the creation of desires.