The fleeting joys of consumption

[Brad DeLong]

>Brad, have any of the economists you know engaged with Jon Elster's 
>argument that consumption is an "opponent process" (something that 
>over time gradually moves from an act motivated by utility to an act 
>motivated by avoiding disutility) while self-realisation through 
>activity in which utility is essentially a by-product have the 
>opposite characteristic?
>

Not in those terms. There are a bunch of articles about "rationally 
addicted consumers," but I've never found them compelling...

Brad DeLong