Quite the contrary, in many cases they are unhappy, particularly in the second and third generations of affluent family life.  This is notably true in the United States, Scandinavia, Switzerland and other parts of western Europe.  It is true to a lesser degree in New Zealand and Australia.

Millions of families in these countries, with all their possessions, fail to enjoy peace and happiness.  On the contrary, they are so acutely unhappy that many of them have come to regard acquisition and accumulation as a sterile rat-race.  Consequently multitudes of people, young and old, have turned their backs on civilization, separating themselves from their affluent homes with their glut of consumer goods to live at non-civilized or pre-civilized levels.  These individuals are avowedly anti-civilization in so far as its material incentives are concerned.

Similar attitudes were expressed in previous civilizations.  Socrates went barefoot through the streets of Athens.  Diogenes lived in a tub.  Uncounted numbers of Indian holy men and early Christians rejected all affluence, embraced poverty, lived simply and austerely.  Religious asceticism is no novelty.  But the wholesale rejection of acquisition and accumulation as a way of life certainly marks a turning point in the popular attitude toward the utilitarian axiom that human happiness is directly proportioned to the quantity and variety of material possessions.

Civilization presupposes getting, keeping and exercising power over nature, society and man.  Each civilization has added to man’s utilization of nature.  This has been a notorious aspect of western civilization since the inauguration of the scientific-technological revolution.  After a century of intensified exploitation of the natural environment, entire communities are reacting with dismay and disgust against the resulting pollution of air, water and land, the wanton waste of soil fertility, forests and minerals, and extermination of various forms of “wilderness.”  Freedom to exploit nature’s storehouse has not brought happiness.  On the contrary, it threatens the existence of other life forms and even the continuance of human life on the planet.

Private enterprise and other forms of permissiveness have led to practices that circumscribe and hamper life.  Their declared objective is the liberation and enlargement of human life and well being.  Where they have been tested out they have proved themselves to be obstructive and destructive rather than creative and constructive.

Notable advances in science and technology have greatly increased the human capacity to transform nature and remake society.  Designed and executed as a means of enhancing the general welfare, science and technology might have promoted human well-being.  But employed as a means of exploiting nature and society for the benefit of a favored few, science and technology, whether directed by European and American promoters of the African slave trade, Spanish conquerors in Latin America, by Belgians in the African Congo, by European whites in their dealings with the North American Indians, by the Nazis in Europe, or by Americans in South East Asia, have involved merciless exploitation accompanied by revolting atrocities.