Why isn't this Utopia? Why, given material and technological advantages beyond the wildest dreams of our most visionary ancestors, are we floundering in a sea of despair?

Well, let's call it "depression." The weekly magazine Shukan Toyo Keizai (July 24) devotes no fewer than 50 pages to its causes, its cures and, probably most significantly, the relentlessly soaring numbers of its victims. In 1996, according to figures it cites from the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, 430,000 Japanese were receiving treatment for depression. In 2008, 1.04 million were. How many sufferers are not in treatment is anybody's guess. Depression is now the leading cause of worker absenteeism, far ahead of cancer, accidents and injury.

The question that follows from this is so obvious it's a wonder it's asked so seldom: What are we doing to ourselves? Why such misery amid such overflowing abundance?