The Happiness Industry: Book Discussion with Will Davies and Nikil Saval

A rousing discussion of how corporations are using office design, surveillance, and worker engagement programs to promote worker efficiency and what this means for us

To celebrate the publication of Will Davies's The Happiness Industry, join Will and Nikil Saval for a discussion of the history of workplace design and  management/behavioral sciences and what methods corporations have been using to increase worker efficiency throughout the ages.

“In a heady mixture of psychology, economics, sociology, and philosophy, this book reveals the misguided nature of the currently popular intellectual project to make people happier and improve society through 'scientific' understanding - and manipulation - of human beings. With many governments and corporations hell-bent on control promoting it aggressively, this project is increasingly depriving our societies of true social bonds, democratic participation, critical thinking, and even happiness itself. An eye-opening, head-spinning, and mind-expanding book.”– Ha-Joon Chang, University of Cambridge, author of 23 Things They Don't Tell You about Capitalism

William Davies is the author of The Happiness Industry and The Limits of Neoliberalism. His writing has appeared in BBC Online, The Daily Beast, New Left Review, Financial Times, and Open Democracy. His website potlatch.typepad.com was featured in the New York Times. He is a Senior Lecturer at Goldsmiths, University of London. 

Nikil Saval is the author of Cubed: A Secret History of the Workplaceand an editor at n+1. He is based in Philadelphia.