If there were evidence that increasing affluence made people happier, there might be occasion to rejoice. Even though GDP per capita has tripled since World II, and houses have grown bigger, cars more luxurious, clothing and food easier to afford, we seem to be working mindlessly to acquire more. In fact, there is ample evidence, both anecdotal and scientific, that once people attain a reasonably good standard of living, making more money and buying more has no appreciable positive effect and in some cases has negative effects.

The biggest cost I see is intergenerational. Materialism is taking a drastic toll at home. There is considerable strain involved in generating the money needed to acquire so much. Many of the parents who come to my office describe living on the earn-and-spend, earn-and-spend treadmill that Berkeley sociologist Arlie Hochschild describes. Parents are exhausted. Children are neglected. Marriages get put on hold. One professional woman reported to me that she felt so overwhelmed that she came home one evening and started breaking plates on the floor in front of her three little kids. Stories like this make me realize we are allowing ourselves to be robbed of what is most precious and counts the most: free time...

I am seeing a new level of competitiveness, not just on the athletic fields and in the classroom but increasingly over possessions. I think of it as the Keds-to-Nike transformation. One status-conscious teenage girl (whose parents checked out my diplomas before they even sat down) said she couldn't understand why she had trouble making and keeping friends. This girl had learned much more about domination than cooperation, and she formed alliances to get what she wanted rather than making real friends.

The scientific literature supports my office observations. A comprehensive review of more than 150 studies on happiness and wealth by psychologists Ed Diener and Martin Seligman showed that there has been no appreciable rise in life satisfaction over the past decades, despite our increased material wealth.

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation issued a report that is sure to give ambitious and acquisitive parents pause. It found an inverse relationship between self-reported child happiness and parental income. Blue-collar and middle-class kids identified themselves as happier than wealthy ones. Kids need their parents on site -- in the foreground when they are young, and in the background as they get older. That's simply not possible in many of today's go-getter households.

So here we are: a generation of fashionistas and Samurai shoppers with full closets and empty hearts. Instead of listening to our souls, we have fallen for a new field of retail anthropology that advises businesses on how to get people in the mood to buy, buy, buy. I saw a catchy phrase that headlined an article in this newspaper's business section several months ago: Appliance Lust. It referred to hunger for eight-burner Viking ranges, built-in woks and Sub-Zero refrigerators with custom wood paneling and door alarms. Those of us who lived through the '60s seem to have forgotten the warning that everything you buy owns you.