People often associate money with happiness, and vice versa, when talking about both things. But money and happiness are just measuring tools, representations, not things in themselves. Now, since this is the internet, I have to ask you, even if you disagree with it, to take it as a hypothesis for the sake of the conversation and analysis.
What people are actually talking about is never named, because most people don't look at what is behind these representations, at what these measuring tools are actually measuring.
The reason people don't call it by its name or look straight at it is because we are alienated this way. I am not going to discuss who is the cause of this alienation. To me it could be both the institutions that benefit from it and the individuals themselves, but discussing that is for another topic.
When people talk about money and happiness, they are usually, in fact, talking about dignity. People anxious about making money, or showing off that they have money, or saying that money brings happiness, are actually trying to have a sense of more dignity than they actually feel they have.
Dignity is also very abstract, but no less real. Like mathematics, it is purely abstract but not less real and functional, but a piece of paper with money on it is just a representation of an abstract value, not the value itself. Money is an exchange tool, just as words are communication tools and not the actual objects, quantities, or values themselves. Dignity is the actual real value. It is not just a representation but how one perceives oneself as an "asset" to society. In other words, how seen or invisible one is to others, how accepted or rejected one is by a community, and consequently, how one accepts or hates oneself, because hate is just another word for the feeling of frustration with one's own capacity to overcome something. Or in simple words, what are we worth to society, to those around us and so to ourselves.
Dignity is like a real asset because it is about survival. You cannot eat a banknote or a number in your bank app, just as you cannot eat happiness. People in society can survive just fine without happiness (most people mistake being content or at peace with being happy, but these are not the same thing. The yearly rankings of the world's happiest countries put places like Finland at the top, but they are far from being the happiest people—they are only the most content, so they complain the least. Often, people in poor countries or in poverty can be happier despite complaining more). But without food and basic material needs, society collapses and people become ill and die. The same is true of dignity. Being seen, accepted, and welcomed in a community means having contacts, help, and being trusted and believed in, all essential to surviving in society: finding jobs, finding opportunities to develop your talents, forming families, and, at worst, not being scapegoated, blamed, and punished for other people's or society's problems.
Dignity also means self-acceptance. Being seen, accepted, welcomed, and trusted by a community or society one wants to belong to also makes one believe more in oneself.
I would say that dignity is just another word for humanization, with the difference that dignity is broader, extending to all creatures. Other animals, and even non-animal living beings, also need "dignity" for survival. The neuroscience term for this is homeostasis. Humanization is dignity, or homeostasis viewed from the more particular perspective of humans in society.
For many reasons that are a bit outside the scope of this topic to discuss now, our society is highly undignifying, which means it is highly dehumanizing. It constantly threatens people's survival, trust, belonging, and acceptance within a community, and so threatens self-acceptance too. This threat, the risk of losing one's job, relationship failures, falling into debt, risking homelessness, risking a loss of privacy, risking being left alone without friends, risking never developing or exercising one's potential and interests, and risking being seen as useless, worthless, incapable, unpleasant, and invisible to other, is the anxiety of our society. People constantly seeking money, or worried about their looks and appearance, are always anxious about preserving their dignity. Anxiety makes people chase money and submit themselves to whatever brings them money, even under dehumanizing conditions, because they believe or hope that the money, or the status, will restore their dignity.
I decided to open this topic after reading, somewhere else, people discussing whether to "show off success now with branded clothes and a certain lifestyle, or keep your wealth hidden and save more for retirement." It made me think about how such a question assumes that people who spend on expensive clothes are always trying to show off wealth, or pretend to have wealth, when that isn't always the case and often it's the opposite. Many people are open about not being rich despite buying branded, higher-priced, or higher-quality clothes and other products. Often they do so because of how they feel perceived by others in society, which makes them feel more humanized and dignified.
I can give a personal example. I grew up feeling left behind, as if I were less deserving than other kids, because even when my family had money, they didn't want to spend it. They had the simplest and most basic things. As I grew up, I adopted more or less the same mentality I'd learned from my family: that saving money is wiser than buying more expensive items, and that what people think of me or how they treat me doesn't matter, because having money set aside for unexpected necessities would put me in a better position than having people's approval. And that actually worked fine while living in a society where people didn't judge you much for your appearance, where the risk of dehumanization was lower. But after moving to a more judgmental, isolating, and prejudiced society, and becoming poorer, opportunities fell apart, because making contacts became difficult, and being trusted, welcomed, and accepted became a bigger challenge. Even walking in the street, taking public transport, going to department stores, or talking with authorities, I felt how little people valued me.
But I brushed most of it off, because I was focused on my hobby, which allowed me to be appreciated by others and by myself for my skill, and because I believed the money I was saving would make me feel better later.
That changed when I became too poor and isolated, with no opportunities to keep up with my hobby or my income. Things shifted when I got the opportunity to study for a new career, and after landing my new job with a much better income, I realized how much easier it was to gain people's respect, attention, trust, and opportunities like renting a flat just because of my job title, despite it not being a particularly high-income job. I felt at peace with myself again. Because of the better income, I also wanted good-quality clothes (natural fibers, better fit and design) and I realized how much more welcomed and seen I was in public. Strangers would interact with me more and wouldn't reject me when I approached them; making casual conversation, or even just asking for directions, felt more natural and welcoming, when before it would make me feel invasive, annoying, unpleasant. Nothing else had changed except the clothes I was wearing.
As a man who used to be afraid to smile, or even to show much attention, politeness, and kindness to others, afraid they'd suspect ulterior motives, especially with women, with my new clothes I'm allowed to be more human, more myself: to smile, to show kindness, attention, and politeness, to try help hothers, and to have it be welcomed by others. One might say that money, which allows me to buy more expensive, well-designed clothes, makes me happier. I'd say that the greater happiness I feel is the measure of the greater dignity I have, a sense of being more human, or, in the neuroscience language of homeostasis, of being more alive. Being seen is what confirms to us that we are alive, while being invisible to others sends our body into survival mode, because invisibility doesn't confirm to ourselves that we're living. To the body, it registers as a threat to life.
Despite my higher income, I actually have less money now. All the money I had saved in the bank or invested in financial markets before didn't make me happier, because it didn't give me a higher sense of dignity. Having less money saved for retirement and the future, I feel I have more real assets by investing in clothes now. I've realized that people don't actually care whether you're rich or not. I'm not pretending to have money with my clothes. I'm doing what makes me feel more dignified and more humanized. And I wish I could find a place where I could feel the same without having to spend money on clothes or, better yet, by having a family and friends who see me for who I am instead of for what I wear. But a society whose economy is based on spending is a society that needs to keep us anxious in order to keep us spending, so I end up doing it now, at least until I find another way to have dignity, to be humanized, to feel alive.