Happiness demands leisure as well as material consumption.

ECONOMIST: Why don't rising incomes make everybody happier?

Economist and social critic Thorstein Veblen took a crack at it in The Theory of the Leisure Class, the 1899 classic that wryly posited the theory of "conspicuous consumption, " his phrase for keeping up with the Joneses.

FORBES: In Search of the Buy Button

Of course there's always Thorstein Veblen's explanation: "conspicuous consumption, " propounded in his 1899 classic, The Theory of the Leisure Class.

FORBES: Money, Happiness And The Pursuit Of Both