{
  "id": 3146007,
  "title": "Re: Re: Re: Pritchard On Liberal Happiness",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/24/re-re-re-pritchard-on-liberal-happiness",
  "topic": "culture",
  "section": "Culture",
  "published": "2026-08-24T23:54:20.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Astral Codex Ten",
    "slug": "astral-codex-ten",
    "url": "https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/re-re-re-pritchard-on-liberal-happiness"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "In early July, Cassie Pritchard claimed on Twitter that liberalism failed because it assumed economic progress would lead to happiness, which did not happen. I disagreed with her comparison of happiness to income, suggesting instead that happiness correlates with the logarithm of income. After Pritchard responded on her Substack, I replied with a few points. Pritchard argued that the effect of income on happiness is small, with a correlation of 0.09 in a large dataset. This means that a fourfold increase in income from $50,000 to $200,000 only has a minor impact on happiness, similar to the effect of a headache or being a full-time caregiver for a disabled elderly relative. Pritchard dismissed the importance of caregiving and other major life changes, which she found trivial compared to income changes. I acknowledged the validity of her point about caregiving but argued that the comparison should be made between rich people's daily happiness and the constant state of being a headache. This comparison makes the impact of income on happiness seem more significant. Pritchard's ultimate source, Kahneman & Deaton (2010), showed that other factors, such as being married versus divorced, obese versus normal-weight, and weekend versus weekday, affect happiness similarly to a 4x increase in income. Since these factors are also substantial, I believe that income should not be dismissed as irrelevant to happiness.",
  "summary": "...",
  "key_points": [
    "Cassie Pritchard criticized liberalism for assuming economic progress leads to happiness.",
    "She argued happiness correlates with logarithm of income, not directly with income.",
    "Income's impact on happiness is small, similar to a headache's effect."
  ],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}