Go on: buy a tomato plant, not a frock

My fiancé is engrossed in a book called Happiness by the economist Richard Layard, from which he reads aloud pertinent statistics. ‘People are happiest in the year they get married,’ he will lugubriously announce, ‘and after that it’s downhill all the way.’ Or: ‘Having children does make you happy, but only for two years.’ Or, plangently, as the evening light begins to fade: ‘Most people are happiest at the end of the day.’

His normal bedtime reading is The Lawn Expert by D.G. Hessayon which, it seems to me, has a rather more uplifting effect on his mood. But the study of happiness is very au courant, having recently been upgraded to a political science. New quangos such as the Whitehall Wellbeing Working Group have sprung up to advise the government on how to build a more cheerful nation. Defra is compiling an ‘index of wellbeing’ by which to measure Britain’s state of mind.

The auguries are not good: a survey commissioned for BBC2’s new series The Happiness Formula found that we British are considerably grumpier than we were in the 1950s, despite being three times richer. The proportion of people describing themselves as ‘very happy’ has fallen from 52 per cent in 1957 to just 36 per cent today. It’s the same story across the developed world: once people have attained a comfortable standard of living, extra wealth does not make them any happier. Indeed, it may even be counterproductive.

Capitalism encourages us to compete unnecessarily against each other, working longer hours in order to afford bigger, shinier status symbols than our neighbour. Advertising exacerbates the situation, coaxing us to buy things that — though they might satisfy a temporary lust — do nothing for the long-term nourishment of the soul. To be truly content, say the experts, we should invest less in treats and trinkets, and more in human relations.