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In a world where technological advancements and economic growth are celebrated as the ultimate markers of success, why are we still plagued by rising rates of anxiety, depression, and a persistent sense of dissatisfaction? This paradox forms the crux of a thought-provoking video that dissects the complex relationship between wealth and happiness. With global capitalism hailed as the driver of progress, one might assume that society is on an upward trajectory toward a more fulfilling life. But as the video suggests, this narrative doesn’t hold up under scrutiny—especially when mental health statistics tell a far darker story.
As we explore the video’s key points, this article will critically examine how the concepts of wealth, inequality, and mental health play out in both traditional finance and the evolving world of cryptocurrencies. Could decentralized finance (DeFi) offer an antidote to the problems entrenched in traditional systems? Let’s dive deeper into the conversation.
The video begins by acknowledging the remarkable improvements in material conditions over the past century: increased life expectancy, higher education rates, and greater access to technology. Yet, despite these advancements, people seem unhappier than ever before. The main argument posited is that while economic growth has provided undeniable benefits, it has failed to address the more fundamental question: what makes a good life?
A particularly striking statement comes early on: despite significant improvements in GDP, productivity, and wealth, mental health issues—especially depression and anxiety—have been rising steadily. The video highlights how wealth beyond a certain point no longer correlates with happiness, a finding supported by numerous studies. Moreover, the rise in wealth inequality is directly linked to worsening mental health conditions, particularly in high-income countries.
At the heart of this analysis is a critical question: if wealth isn’t making us happier, what will? And how does this apply to emerging financial systems like cryptocurrencies?
One of the video’s strongest points is the clear articulation of the diminishing returns of wealth on happiness. The correlation between economic growth and happiness tapers off after basic needs are met—a finding echoed in research across both traditional and emerging economies. This poses a significant challenge to the relentless pursuit of GDP growth as a primary policy goal. We see this pattern not only in Sweden, where the video focuses, but globally, where countries with high living standards report stagnating levels of happiness despite increased affluence.
Another compelling argument is the link between inequality and mental health. The video provides a striking visual comparison: in highly unequal societies, both the rich and the poor suffer from more anxiety and depression than their counterparts in more egalitarian nations. This underscores the societal cost of allowing extreme disparities in wealth and power to persist—a theme that resonates deeply in the crypto space, where decentralization is often proposed as a solution to entrenched inequalities.
The video also excels in its discussion of productivity and meaning in work. It highlights how, despite technological advancements making work more efficient, people increasingly report feeling disconnected from the purpose of their jobs. This echoes sentiments found in the crypto community, where blockchain technology is often championed as a way to reclaim individual autonomy and purpose, especially through decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs).
However, the video does leave certain areas unaddressed. For instance, while it critiques economic growth and inequality, it doesn’t fully explore alternative models of organizing society or the economy. The argument could benefit from a deeper exploration of whether systems like universal basic income (UBI) or wealth redistribution could alleviate the issues raised.
Moreover, while the video discusses the growing reliance on psychiatric medication as a symptom of societal stress, it overlooks the systemic reasons why mental health issues have become so prevalent. There’s a missed opportunity to examine how societal pressures, driven by capitalist imperatives, contribute to these problems. A more robust analysis could have delved into how financial systems, social media, and even the news cycle exacerbate feelings of anxiety.
Finally, the video doesn’t acknowledge the potential for digital and decentralized solutions, such as cryptocurrencies, to provide alternatives to the problems it outlines. While traditional financial systems may be fraught with inequality, the growing world of blockchain offers new ways to distribute wealth and foster community—an idea that could have added depth to the discussion.
In the cryptocurrency ecosystem, the idea that more wealth doesn’t necessarily lead to more happiness resonates on several levels. Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum emerged, in part, as a response to the failures of traditional financial systems. One could argue that the blockchain revolution isn’t just about creating new forms of wealth—it’s about creating new forms of meaning and autonomy.
Take decentralized finance (DeFi) as an example. Unlike traditional banking systems, where wealth and power are concentrated in the hands of a few, DeFi offers a way for individuals to take control of their financial futures. The growth of DeFi projects reflects a desire not only for financial returns but also for participation in a fairer, more inclusive system. However, much like the diminishing returns of wealth on happiness, DeFi enthusiasts should be cautious not to equate financial decentralization with an automatic path to greater societal well-being.
Interestingly, the video’s discussion of inequality has a parallel in the crypto world. While blockchain promises decentralization, wealth concentration still exists, with so-called “whales” controlling large portions of the market. This leads to a different form of inequality, where early adopters or major investors have disproportionate influence.
That said, blockchain technology has immense potential to redistribute wealth through decentralized networks and projects like universal basic income (UBI) built on crypto platforms. Projects like GoodDollar are experimenting with blockchain-based UBI, offering a glimpse into how crypto might address the systemic inequalities exacerbated by traditional finance.
The ideas presented in the video have wide-reaching implications, not just for finance but for the future of societal well-being. If economic growth is no longer a reliable proxy for happiness, it forces us to rethink the very metrics we use to measure success. In a world increasingly driven by technological innovation, we must ask: What are we optimizing for?
In finance, this might mean moving beyond GDP and profit margins to consider more holistic measures like mental health, social equity, and environmental sustainability. Blockchain and cryptocurrency could play a pivotal role in this shift. With decentralized systems, there’s potential for new models of governance and wealth distribution—ones that prioritize well-being over sheer economic growth.
Looking forward, the rise of decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) may offer a glimpse into a future where community-driven decision-making takes precedence over top-down economic structures. DAOs empower individuals to have a direct say in how resources are distributed, creating a system that could better address the inequality and mental health issues highlighted in the video.
As someone deeply engaged in both finance and the emerging world of cryptocurrencies, I find the video’s exploration of wealth and happiness particularly timely. In my own experience, both traditional finance and crypto have their blind spots when it comes to well-being. Traditional finance often prioritizes profit at the expense of mental health, while the crypto world, though idealistic, can fall prey to the same issues of wealth concentration and market volatility.
That said, blockchain offers a unique opportunity to rethink how we organize financial systems. The promise of decentralization isn’t just about financial freedom—it’s about creating a more equitable and fulfilling world. But for this vision to succeed, we must ensure that crypto doesn’t replicate the inequalities of traditional finance.
The video offers a compelling critique of the traditional financial system, pointing out the disconnect between material progress and mental well-being. While the crypto world holds promise as an alternative, it faces its own set of challenges in delivering on this vision. As we look to the future, both traditional and decentralized systems must prioritize not just economic growth, but human happiness and societal health. If we succeed in balancing these forces, we may finally unlock the full potential of both finance and technology.
This lesson dives into the complexities of wealth, happiness, and mental health as discussed in both traditional finance and the emerging world of cryptocurrencies. We will explore how material progress has shaped society, examine the paradox of economic growth and mental well-being, and connect these ideas to the crypto world. Why, despite economic improvements, are we not happier? And how might blockchain and decentralized systems offer a different perspective on progress, value, and happiness?
Economic Growth
Traditional finance: An increase in the production of goods and services over time, typically measured by GDP.
Crypto: Economic growth in crypto can be viewed as the expansion of blockchain networks, market capitalization, and adoption of cryptocurrencies.
Why it’s crucial: Understanding growth helps newcomers see why more wealth doesn’t always lead to greater happiness and how crypto’s decentralized, inclusive model might provide an alternative.
Inequality
Traditional finance: The unequal distribution of wealth, where a small percentage of the population controls a majority of the resources.
Crypto: Inequality in crypto can arise from wealth concentration in a few large wallets, but blockchain technology aims to redistribute power through decentralization.
Why it’s crucial: The more unequal a system, the greater the societal issues, including mental health struggles—an insight applicable to both traditional and crypto spaces.
Mental Health
Traditional finance: A growing concern due to increased work stress, economic pressures, and societal expectations.
Crypto: While promising decentralization and empowerment, the volatility and complexity of crypto markets can also heighten anxiety.
Why it’s crucial: As financial systems evolve, understanding their impact on mental health helps us navigate both traditional and crypto landscapes more mindfully.
Productivity
Traditional finance: The efficiency of producing goods and services, traditionally driven by technological advances and labor force growth.
Crypto: Blockchain technologies increase productivity by reducing middlemen, speeding up transactions, and automating processes through smart contracts.
Why it’s crucial: Newcomers must grasp how increased productivity in blockchain ecosystems offers potential for more efficient economic systems—but, like in traditional finance, it doesn’t guarantee happiness.
Wealth Distribution
Traditional finance: The way wealth is spread across a population, often skewed in favor of a few.
Crypto: Wealth distribution in crypto can be highly volatile, but decentralized platforms aim to create more equitable access to financial opportunities.
Why it’s crucial: Seeing the parallels between wealth concentration in both systems helps newcomers question if decentralization can truly foster fairness or if it just replicates old systems.
Explanation:
Over the past century, human life has seen unprecedented advances in technology, health, and wealth. We live longer, have access to more education, and enjoy the conveniences of modern life. Yet, despite all this progress, mental health struggles have skyrocketed. In traditional finance, economic growth has long been the marker of success, but studies show that beyond a certain point, more wealth doesn’t make us happier.
Crypto Connection:
In the crypto world, wealth can be created quickly—sometimes at a dizzying rate. Yet, much like in traditional finance, there is a risk that this new wealth doesn’t lead to increased happiness. Crypto projects promise decentralized wealth distribution and access, but the question remains: will these new systems truly change the emotional and psychological outcomes for the better?
Explanation:
The more a country develops, the less additional wealth impacts overall happiness. While economic growth is vital in lifting nations out of poverty, the benefits taper off after a certain threshold. In countries like Sweden, the US, and Australia, additional wealth has not resulted in better mental health or overall life satisfaction.
Crypto Connection:
In crypto, early adopters can see massive gains, creating happiness through newfound wealth. However, as the market matures, participants might find that additional wealth doesn’t bring the same thrill. The volatility of crypto assets also introduces anxiety, illustrating that more wealth doesn’t always bring peace of mind, even in decentralized financial systems.
Explanation:
Wealth inequality leads to significant mental health challenges. Surprisingly, it’s not just the poorest who feel the weight of inequality—those at the top experience heightened anxiety and stress as well. The rich fear losing their status, while the poor feel powerless. This dynamic creates a societal mental health crisis that money can’t fix.
Crypto Connection:
While crypto claims to democratize wealth and power, it too has seen inequality emerge. Large holders (“whales”) can sway markets, leading to similar dynamics of wealth concentration. Crypto’s challenge is to fulfill its promise of financial inclusion without replicating the same inequalities that plague traditional finance.
Explanation:
Productivity has soared over the last century, but this hasn’t translated into more fulfilling lives. People report feeling disconnected from the meaning of their work, and loneliness is on the rise. In Sweden, over 50% of households are single-person households, and more people report having no close friends than ever before.
Crypto Connection:
Blockchain technology enhances productivity by streamlining processes and reducing the need for intermediaries. However, the rise of decentralized work and remote transactions may exacerbate the loneliness already present in society. Crypto might create more efficient systems but must also consider how to foster community and human connection in these digital spaces.
Economic Growth Doesn’t Equal Happiness
While necessary for lifting nations out of poverty, beyond a certain point, more wealth doesn’t lead to greater happiness—an insight critical in both traditional and crypto finance.
Inequality Affects Mental Health
Societies with greater inequality suffer from higher levels of mental health issues. Crypto promises to decentralize wealth and power, but it must avoid the same pitfalls of inequality.
Loneliness and Mental Health
Rising productivity has led to disconnection, loneliness, and mental health struggles. The crypto world, with its focus on decentralization, must find ways to foster meaningful human connections.
The Mental Health Crisis is Global
Mental health issues are not confined to any one nation or financial system, highlighting the need for innovative solutions that prioritize well-being over wealth.
Crypto Can Offer Solutions, But With Caution
While blockchain can revolutionize financial systems, it must ensure that these innovations lead to more equitable, mentally healthy societies.
By examining these concepts, we bridge traditional finance with crypto, revealing how new technologies offer exciting—but also challenging—opportunities for reshaping the future.
It seems as if the world is falling apart. There’s a war here, a terrible environmental disaster there. Everybody hates each other. You get kind of depressed. Over the last couple of generations, a lot has changed. When my great-grandmother was my age in the 1930s, the average life span in my country, Sweden, was 62. Today, it’s 83. Out of 1,000 children born, 77 died before the age of five. Today, that number is two. Back then, there were 17 persons per car. Today, there are two persons per car in Sweden. Back then, 1% of adults had a university degree. Today, it’s 26%. And, of course, society’s productivity, as measured by the GDP per capita, has increased massively.
So the grand narrative now is that all of this development, all of this progress, is due to global capitalism. And the best thing we can do is just to let it be and maybe do a few adjustments in the margin. This is Roland Paulsen, author and associate professor of sociology at Lund University. I sat down with him to speak about what he calls the greatest mystery in medicine and social science right now.
But first, we talked about the conventional narrative around the growth that you often hear from people like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. I mean, this is the best time to be alive in the history of the world in terms of medicine, transportation, entertainment, you name it. Or just in terms of aggregate wealth. Now, the distribution has gotten more and more skewed in recent years, and it should be skewed to quite a degree. The world has never been healthier. It’s never been wealthier. We have better houses, better cars, and tractors. Humanity really does seem to be improving in one area after another. It almost makes you believe in this old-fashioned thing called progress.
This is a narrative that suits everyone who is currently becoming rich at others’ expense. And I think the question we should ask now is: what is a good life? Despite all these improvements, which are very real in material conditions, why are we not feeling better? This is me and my friends from law school, some 15 years ago. I didn’t have a lot of money back then, but the funny thing is that I remember feeling that my life was still rich. I was surrounded by friends, and I spent my days learning stuff. I later graduated, and I started earning money. But did that money make me happier? I’m not that sure.
So according to all the survey material we have, there is a positive correlation between economic growth and happiness. But that correlation only seems to exist up until a certain level. After that level, the correlation flattens out, and in Sweden and in many other OECD nations, we reached that level already in the 1950s. To explain, if you draw a scale from poor to rich and from unhappy to happy, it’s clear that the poorer a country is, the more its happiness is affected by a small increase in wealth. That’s why the graph increases steeply in the beginning. But when wealth reaches a certain level, the connection between additional money and happiness seems to disappear. In other words, at a certain level, more wealth doesn’t make the country that much happier.
I believe this finding is more profound than I think most people realize, not only for countries but also for us as individuals. There are some people, though, such as the influential author and cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker, who seem to claim that more wealth essentially always leads to more happiness. But to find support for that argument, they need to use some statistical alchemy. If you take this graph we just looked at and make the income scale logarithmic, then yes, the flattening effect isn’t that clear, and it seems like happiness always increases.
In Steven Pinker’s book Enlightenment Now, a book that Bill Gates has called his favorite book of all time, Steven Pinker uses a logarithmic income scale, but in my mind, using a logarithmic income scale makes a graph like this completely misleading. And I start to wonder: why are Steven Pinker, Bill Gates, and others like them so willing to use statistical tricks to make it look like wealth always leads to more happiness? Well, I think there are political reasons for that. It’s all about just saying, let’s go on with the same type of society, and let’s just keep everything moving faster and faster, and we’ll become happier and happier.
I openly admit to having battled depression and anxiety, and I think a lot of people do. I have problems with depression and anxiety, and I found it difficult for me to be me. I probably had at least half a dozen depression spells that I’ve gone through. I was all over the place mentally every time I had to put on a suit and tie and having to do the role. I was in a fight-or-flight mode. Panic attacks, severe anxiety. Talking openly about mental health problems has become common, but not only among celebrities.
Also, in my own circles, I have several friends who have struggled with depression, and many of the colleagues that I’ve met throughout my career have experienced the horrors of burnout. Does this indicate that there is an actual ongoing increase in mental health problems, or is it just that we’re more open about them today? Let’s look at what the data says.
We know from mass media, it’s being reported all the time that we’re seeing increases in the consumption of psychiatric drugs. In Sweden and in the US, around 1/6 of the population is taking some kind of psychiatric drugs. In the US, if we just look at middle-aged women, it’s around a fourth who are taking some type of antidepressant. We also know that the number of people who are getting some kind of psychiatric diagnosis is dramatically increasing—that we know. But when we talk about the levels of mental health problems in epidemiology and sociology, we are not relying so much on those numbers because they can be affected by all sorts of things.
What we rely on are large surveys where you ask identical questions regarding how people feel and see changes over time. The gold standard is the World Mental Health Survey, which is organized by the World Health Organization. They use representative samples, they interview hundreds of thousands of people. The interviews are very long; they can last several hours and be performed on several occasions with the same individual. The World Mental Health Survey is really the most reliable source we have when talking about the actual distribution of mental health problems.
So I printed a report with numbers from the World Mental Health Survey, and it strikes me that almost daily the news reports about GDP growth, stock market fluctuations, etc., but we almost never hear about the remarkable results that you can read in this report. If we look at a single diagnosis like depression, we’ve seen a global increase of 20% in just ten years. And if we look at the richest nations and how many would qualify for the most common psychiatric diagnoses, and here I would include depression, generalized anxiety disorder, bipolar disorder—in the UK, in the US, and in Australia, it’s around one in four who would qualify for any of those diagnoses. And in Canada and France, it’s around one in five.
In 1990, depression was the fourth most common cause of ill health, and a decade later, it was the third biggest cause. By 2010, depression had climbed to second place. In 2017, the World Health Organization reported that the leading cause of ill health globally was no longer a somatic illness but depression. If we look at the anxiety disorders, which are divided into more diagnoses, if we just put them together, they are actually number one. They are more frequent than even depression.
These are obviously astonishing numbers, but things get even weirder when we start comparing these results between high-, middle-, and low-income countries. When we look at physical illnesses, the richer a country becomes, the lesser problems it has with different illnesses. But when we look at mental health problems, it’s the reverse. For diagnoses such as generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, agoraphobia, post-traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse, and psychotic episodes, the frequency is more than twice as high in high-income nations as in low-income nations. So the richer a nation becomes, the higher levels of mental health problems we have.
These findings, that mental health problems are more common in high-income countries, are also repeated in this major study called the Global Burden of Disease Study, despite the fact that this study uses different sources and other ways of analyzing the data. All in all, what I really want to emphasize is that this social variation in mental health problems is one of the greatest mysteries in both medicine and social science right now.
One of the most common explanations is that of medicalization. That is the fact that we are making more and more normal states into medical conditions that should be diagnosed and treated. But the surveys that we’ve been discussing are formulated exactly to try to measure what’s actually going on beyond the scope of psychiatric diagnosing. So they can’t be explained away as easily as that.
Another explanation is that of increasing inequality. There is strong evidence that inequality affects mental well-being. In this graph, the horizontal axis sets out how unequal a country is—from low inequality to high inequality. And the vertical axis sets out the percentage of people in the country who suffer from mental health problems—from a low percentage to a high percentage. And if you start plotting out countries on this graph, you will soon start seeing an indisputable pattern: the more inequality a country has, the more its citizens suffer from mental health problems. But—and here is a really important point—in countries with a lot of inequality, such as the US and the UK, everyone suffers more than in less unequal countries.
Let me show you a graph that illustrates this. If we zoom in on the unequal countries and we look at the population in these countries from the poor to the rich, and we then measure how much
social anxiety people have, then we see that the poor people have a lot of anxiety and the rich people, they have less anxiety. But—and here’s where it gets really interesting—if we zoom in on the less unequal countries, then we see that the rich people in unequal countries have almost as much social anxiety as the poorest people in the less unequal countries.
One of the strongest, probably the strongest, correlations, if we look at single variables and mental health, is that of loneliness. And here we see a dramatic increase in how people are living more and more on their own in one-person households, which actually are over 50% in nations such as Sweden. But we also see an increase in the subjective feelings of loneliness, with more and more people saying that they have no close friends. In an American study, researchers asked people how many close friends they have. In 1985, the most common answer was three close friends. Twenty years later, the most common answer was zero close friends. So there are some studies indicating that if you have no close friends, the likelihood that you will have depression is more than 50%.
Another explanation is work and the changes in work. How much meaning we feel in work has also changed dramatically. We’ve had a more than tenfold increase in productivity just during the 20th century. What that means is that what used to require ten people can now be produced by just one person, and that’s in Sweden and most OECD nations. What that means is that in order to retain a stable level of employment, we have to invent new jobs. And these are jobs that earlier generations didn’t need.
Here we see a lot of indications that people are feeling a lack of meaning in what they are doing. A way of measuring that is just to ask straight on: do you feel that you’re making a meaningful contribution in your job? And in nations like the Netherlands and the UK, as many as around 40% answer no. That, together with the fact that precarity is increasing.
Another factor is the consumption of screen time. There is a correlation between mental well-being and how much time we spend looking at screens, but it’s not a very strong correlation. And here we have to look more carefully into what we’re actually doing on our screens.
Another explanation is that of the mean world syndrome, the fact that our news tends to focus on negative events. We have so much information all around the world, it seems as if the world is falling apart. There’s a war here, a terrible environmental disaster there. Everybody hates each other, and you get kind of depressed.
A less debated variable is that of how far we’re looking into the future, so-called time horizons. We have this Buddhist mantra that if you’re living in the present, here and now, feelings of anxiety and worry will just go away. And I think that’s true to some extent, but I don’t think we’ve always had the necessity to do a lot of meditation in order to reach that sort of presence.
And here we can see historically that how far into the future we’re thinking has really increased. If we go far back, if we go to the hunter-gatherers—and we know this from a lot of anthropological studies—they did not think that far into the future. In fact, they had to repeat the same way of living almost every day in order to gather everything they needed in order to survive. When we have agriculture, you have to plan several years ahead. And when we develop technology even further and we have nuclear power and nuclear waste, we have to plan, you know, 100,000 years into the future and see, well, how should we take care of this waste?
So what this does is to offer more space for us to worry about the future and to calculate risks and think about all the things that might go wrong. On an individual level, it might be very important to accept that ‘now I have feelings of anxiety,’ ‘now I have feelings of depression,’ and that might actually be a strong way of countering these emotions. But on a societal level, we don’t have to accept that people are feeling more and more anxiety, more and more depression. On a societal level, we should really think about whether there is anything we can do about this and not rely on the idea that economic growth will just solve it automatically, because clearly it is not.
So this video was a real challenge to make because this topic is so important, but it’s also incredibly complex. Ultimately, I was able to make this video thanks to Roland Paulsen’s brilliant book What If (Tänk om). I’m also so grateful that Roland allowed me to interview him. I will now let Roland end this video by saying a few words about his book. So thank you very much for watching, and see you next time.
So the book is called Tänk om en studie i oro in Swedish. In English, we’ve translated it into What If: The New Age of Anxiety. It’s not out in English yet, but it will be soon, hopefully. You’ll find it in German, Polish, Hungarian, Finnish, and some other languages. The reason I wanted to write it was because this shift that I’ve talked about in mental health, the increase that we see with different expressions of anxiety and worrying, has not been studied enough in social science nor in medicine as I see it. So in the book, I tried to give an account of what this increase looks like and also gave a few suggestions for how we might explain it, although it’s still a great mystery.