Industrialization and Psychological Well-Being

Does industrialization provide for psychological needs or not?

The argument given here is that industrialized nations have provided material comforts for its people. Now, that the people of these nations no longer have to think about satisfying their basic needs, they have the time to turn their attention to other needs, in the hierarchy of needs, which are secondary and can be considered a luxury. Spiritual and psychological needs come in this category. These needs are partially satisfied by money but do not exhibit a perfect positive correlation with the acquisition of material wealth. Therefore, economics and industrialization do not give us the complete answer to attaining happiness, concentration, peace of mind, equanimity, freedom from anxiety, nervousness, self control, self satisfaction, self esteem, and self worth. In fact according to this argument, the very processes and underlying motivations, which drive the efforts to maximize material comforts such as unchecked consumerism, materialism, profit- motive etc. reduce psychological satisfaction. The mantra of capitalism is the human desire to consume more and more, which on its part is premised on the supposed human nature of not being satisfied by what he has. Dissatisfaction is the source of unhappiness.
However, an abandonment of these processes would not solve the problem. On the contrary reverting back to pre-industrial processes would exacerbate unhappiness and create human misery born out of non-satisfaction of basic human needs. The answers probably tend to lie closer to the unfathomable and mysterious processes of prayer, meditation, Hatha Yoga, tai chi, pilates, etc. However, the pursuit of these activities requires time and money, as techniques of prayer and meditation and yoga have to be learnt from experts. It cannot be learnt overnight and requires a lot of mental effort and investment of time and money. These processes have primarily originated in the oriental regions of the world. But the reality that one sees is the reality of present-day globalization wherein the unstoppable processes of flows of ideas, sharing of knowledge, etc. are bringing these oriental practices within the reach of industrial civilization. Thus, there is today a huge demand for services such as yoga, meditation techniques, etc. Nothing intrinsically prevents industrialized countries from embracing these needs.
However, in the final analysis, happiness is a state of mind. There are many people in the industrialized West that are happy without yoga, meditation, etc. and vice versa. Therefore, the argument that we elaborated in the first paragraph is an unsubstantiated one.