The Cost of Living

I haven't made it all the way through Barry Schwartz's The Cost of Living but I am intrigued by the premise of his book. Schwartz raises valid questions with regards to many aspects of our lives today, not only in this book but everything I have heard or read from him.

Here is a quote used in his book that captures the essence of his argument.

The burden of our civilization is not merely, as many suppose, that the product of industry is ill-distributed, or its conduct tyrannical, or its operation interrupted by embittered disagreements. It is that industry itself has come to hold a position of exclusive predominance among human interests, which no single interest, and least of all the provision of the material means of existence, is fit to occupy.
- R. H. Tawney, historian

Whether you refer to it as Western civilization, the rat race, or any other name I certainly feel this pull in my life. Perhaps this is only a problem we can have at this point in history when so many of us have so much leisure freedom. If we were living on the edge of hunger or survival from danger I am sure we wouldn't have these worries. The realities of our lives though is that we must face the question of where to place material goods and the getting of them in the priorities of our lives.