Desire Without End: Plato’s Poverty and Today’s Happiness Data
Plato argued that poverty comes from multiplying desires, not a fall in wealth, a view echoed by modern research showing happiness rises with income only up to a point before the hedonic treadmill erodes gains; the piece ties The Republic’s tripartite soul to today’s behavioral economics, and argues that addressing both material poverty and the internal sense of not having enough requires governance of appetite, not just more money.