ABSTRACT OF PAPER
Title: From individual well-being to economic welfare. Tibor Scitovsky explains why (consumer) dis-satisfaction leads to a Joyless Economy
Author: Di Giovinazzo Viviana
My paper analyzes Tibor Scitovsky’s attempt to solve the paradox of consumers’ dissatisfaction in welfare societies. My research concentrate on Scitovsky’s ground-breaking book, The Joyless Economy (1976) which has been the first book to apply theories of neuropsychology to questions of consumer behavior in clear, non-technical language. Setting out to examine the failures of our consumerist lifestyle, Scitovsky discusses the social and economic consequences of the lack of novelty. The economist concludes that people’s need for stimulation is so vital that it can lead to violence if not satisfied by novelty – whether in challenging work, art, or fashion. In putting this very general principle of human nature into the modern economic system, Scitovsky gives a plausible answer to the consumer dissatisfaction, that is caused by his/her propensity to lavish in comfort-biased purchases. From the supply side he explains why the modern production may impede development. In the paper I also explore the remedies Scitovsky offers to “cure” the welfare society’s disease. The scholar demonstrates that only a broad knowledge can “educate” consumers how to consume, because only “skilled consumers” can expand the range of their consumption possibilities without surrender decisions on the quality of consumption to producers who comprehensibly tend to aim for what is most amenable to mass production and comfort. When explaining the neurological basis of creative innovation, Tibor Scitovsky’s Joyless Economy apparently suggests just some devices for consumer’s satisfaction; actually it lays the foundations for an economic theory where novelty is the key element to assess the utility value and knowledge is the means to gain more novelty.
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