The joyless economy : an inquiry into human satisfaction and consumer dissatisfaction / Tibor Scitovsky.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 283-302) and indices.

Chapter 1, Introduction: plutocracy and mob rule.

I. The psychology and economics of motivation: Chapter 2, Between strain and boredom -- Chapter 3, The pursuit of novelty -- Chapter 4, Comfort versus pleasure -- Chapter 5, Enter economics -- Chapter 6, Necessities and comforts -- Chapter 7, Income and happiness.

II. The American way of life: Chapter 8, Is our life too good? -- Chapter 9, Is it too dull? -- Chapter 10, Our Puritan ghost -- Chapter 11, Our disdain for culture -- Chapter 12, What's wrong with mass production? -- Chapter 13, What's wrong with specialization?

"In lucid prose, Scitovsky relates what psychologists have learned about human motivation through experiment, and he compares their picture with the models that economists have constructed on the basis of consumers' buying patterns. He finds that the economists have more to learn and to revise. To right the balance, he has outlined a more adequate theory of human satisfaction, which he illustrates with examples ranging from the number of vacations we take to the amount of garbage we throw away, from the way we ride escalators to our habits of shopping. The Joyless Economy is a first attempt to bring psychology and economics together for a better understanding of human desires and particularly of that paradoxical dissatisfaction we sometimes have when we seem to have gotten what we wanted. For example, the importance of novelty is seldom realized, but Scitovsky maintains that it is essential to life, a necessity which we seek wherever we can get it - in art, fashion, gadgets, late-model cars, scandal, violence - and one which the modern economy is singularly deficient in satisfying. Economists have neglected novelty, but psychologists view it as the brain's need for exercise - the exercise of processing information." -- From the dust jacket.