Tag Archives: richard layard

The Challenge of Affluence

Avner Offer’s The Challenge of Affluence starts with certainty and ends with doubt. “Affluence breeds impatience, and impatience undermines well-being”, states Offer at the start of Chapter 1. That theme runs through the book to his conclusion, but the lessons he draws from it are not as simple or confidently stated: “Well-being is more than having more. It is a balance between our own needs, and those of others, on whose goodwill and approbation our own well-being depends … I present these findings in the hope that they will make our choices appear not simpler and easier, but as …

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  • David Le Grice
    Weird that this appears to be the first LDV article about this, and the first time anyone in the parliamentary party has spoken up about it (as far as I'm aware...
  • Jack
    Delighted to see conference overwhelmingly reject the EHRC guidance (they don't deserve three quarters of that name - I accept they are a commission). People ar...
  • Geoff Reid
    Somebody had to say it eventual!y. Thank you Tom for inviting us to be honest on this matter....
  • Hywel
    Important point there Paul. For all the angst about 'lack of cut through' that has pretty much been the case for most of the time the LIb Dems existed except f...
  • Roland
    @Gwyn, I agree with David Raw about relative urgency. However, even in the list of political reforms, I would put changes to voting way below the changes that n...