Standard accounts of the evolution of Tibor Scitovsky’s ideas inThe Joyless Economy (1976) emphasize the influence of psychological theory as proposed by the motivational psychologists of the 1950s and 1960s. There is no doubt that it was indeed important for the development of his innovative monograph, though its influence needs to be understood in the context of his troubled perceptions of 20^thcentury mass society. This paper draws on Scitovsky’s Memoirs, unpublished in English, to explore his sustained critique of economic progress, developed both by his move to post-war consumer-oriented America and his engagement with the some of the past century’s most influential cultural commentators. These include Erich Fromm and the members of the Frankfurt School, Bertrand de Jouvenel, Raymond Aron, Lewis Mumford, Sigfried Giedion and Bernard Rudofsky.