I am not convinced that money can’t buy happiness. Here’s an article that sums up two current economic theories about relative v. absolute wealth and happiness. For a long time, it was believed that wealth alone didn’t bring happiness, but being wealthier than those around you did. On the other hand, more recent data suggests a good correlation between a country’s purchasing power and average lifetime happiness. So I think the money/happiness relationship is probably more complicated than either money=happiness or money has no relationship to happiness.
That said, what I’ve read about happiness suggests that there are (more or less) three components:
1. an innate happiness set point
2. your immediate circumstances
3. your general circumstances
Daniel Gilbert does a nice job discussing (1) in Stumbling on Happiness. He shows that if you change people’s lives in a way that you would expect to dramatically alter their happiness—either positively, like lottery winners, or negatively, like quadriplegics—they tend to return to their former baseline happiness level within about 18 months.
And I think the other two sort of speak for themselves. If something great happens, you feel happier; if your life in general is pretty great, you feel happier. I think maybe those things might be more what you were getting at, though? And I think those change from person to person. Some people like a strong social network while others are happier alone; some people enjoy being immersed in work while others feel overwhelmed; etc.
This is a great question. Please do clarify if I sort of missed what you were aiming at!