After a population has attained a "reasonable" standard of living, additional goods or services does not increase happiness.
The studies indicate that:
1. At a micro level, it is the quality of your relationships that determines happiness
2. At a macro level, more equal societies are happier than unequal societies (irrespective of how they get there)
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If more goods don't make you happier, what is the point of endless consumption
I think you're getting off topic. It has no direct connection with happiness, which is another causal issue with the standard of living.
It's easy to understand this when you analyze why people wake up early and go to work every day: they do it to earn an income, which they will use to obtain goods and services. In other words, they work and produce in order to obtain things in return.
The ultimate goal of work and production is consumption. And the more unobstructed this consumption is, the greater the capacity of this population to exchange the fruits of their labor for goods and services. Therefore, the higher the standard of living of these people will be.
Working and producing -- that is, creating supply -- means demanding things. And this is true even if this worker saves 100% of his income: by saving, he is merely transferring demand to third parties, be they borrowers, companies in which he invests, charities to which he donates, or even transfers to his children and grandchildren.
The main point is that production, always and everywhere, is the expression of demand.
There are only two ways to increase the income of individuals in a country -- that is, the per capita income -- of a society: either by increasing the total number of hours during which goods and services are produced, or by increasing the number of goods and services produced per hour of work.
In other words: either one works more or one works more productively.
These are the only two possible ways to increase the income of each individual in the economy. Either he increases his workload and, consequently, starts to produce a greater quantity of goods and services (whose sales will allow him to earn more income), or he maintains his working hours and starts to produce more things during this same time interval (which will also allow him to earn more income).
In the long term, of course, the standard of living of any society can only improve in a sustained manner if it opts for the second alternative: after all, the maximum number of hours that individuals in a society can work is materially limited, so the only option left for them is to increase productivity.
Therefore, a higher quality of life requires higher productivity. However, here is the problem: productivity in less developed economies is low. There is a certain consensus on the causes of low productivity:
Low qualification and capacity of workers (human capital)
Outdated and poorly managed technology in companies (physical capital)
Expensive and below-necessary investment (financial capital)
Insufficient and dilapidated infrastructure (highways, railways, waterways, ports)
Complicated bureaucracy
Confusing and rigid business environment
It is worth noting that there is a difference between economic growth and economic enrichment. It is perfectly possible for a country to have stagnant productivity, and then it is mathematically obvious that GDP was driven mainly by an increase in the workforce (the famous "demographic bonus"). In other words, the economy grew simply because more people entered the job market. More people working and producing generated an inevitable increase in the goods and services produced (obviously), and so GDP grew. But this is "inertial" growth. It is not lasting growth. It is the type of growth that tends to stagnate as soon as the number of people entering the job market stops growing. And that is where the real problem begins.
Since poverty is the absence of material goods, its solution is obvious. To overcome poverty, wealth creation is crucial.
Although it has flaws, the best indicator to portray the true wealth of a country is still GDP per capita by PPP. Essentially, GDP per capita represents the division between the total goods and services produced by an economy and its total population. The indicator seeks to present an average measurement of the wealth of individuals in each country. Consequently, the higher the GDP per capita, the greater the average wealth of each individual and, by definition, the lower their poverty. However, there is a very common criticism of GDP per capita: it does not measure inequalities in income distribution or the real availability of goods and services per capita due to the exchange rate factor.
