Why Happiness as a Public Policy Doesn't Work

Washington Post: The global happiness derby  Robert Samuelson

We ought to leave “happiness” to novelists and philosophers — and rescue it from the economists and psychologists who think it can be distilled into a “science” and translated into pro-happiness policies. Fat chance. Government can often mitigate sources of unhappiness (starvation, unemployment, disease), but happiness is more than the absence of misery. If we could manufacture happiness, we could repeal the “human condition.”

Somehow this has escaped the social scientists who want to make happiness the goal of government. They argue that economic output (gross domestic product) doesn’t measure everything that’s important in life — family, friends or religion, for example. True, but it doesn’t follow that “happiness” can be targeted as an alternative. No matter. Their latest brief is the “World Happiness Report,” which ranks countries by their “subjective well-being” (the technical label for happiness) as recorded by public opinion surveys. ...

... All these countries share one common characteristic: They’re small in population and, except Canada and Australia, land mass. Small countries enjoy an advantage in the happiness derby. They’re more likely to have homogeneous populations with fewer ethnic, religious and geographic conflicts. This minimizes one potentially large source of unhappiness. Among big countries, the United States ranks first. ...

... Well, if economic growth doesn’t make people happier, what’s the point? The happiness movement is often anti-growth. Yes, the poorest countries need growth to relieve misery. But otherwise, “the lifestyles of the rich imperil the survival of the poor,” writes Columbia University economist Jeffrey Sachs in the happiness report. “Climate change is already hitting the poorest regions.”

This sounds reasonable but isn’t. There are two flaws. First, the Easterlin Paradox may be untrue. A recent study by economists Justin Wolfers and Betsey Stevenson of the University of Pennsylvania found that higher economic growth does raise happiness in most countries. Second, even if the Easterlin Paradox survives (economists are quarreling), growth is essential to maintaining existing happiness. ...

... All rich societies already try to balance economic growth with social justice, security and environmental progress. The happiness movement would merely impose more intervention. It “boils down to having zealous politicians regulate the rest of us into their version of happiness,” argues Marc De Vos of the Itinera Institute, a Belgian think tank.

Creating an impossible goal — universal happiness — also condemns government to failure. Happiness depends on too much that is uncontrollable. ...

... Contradictions abound. Freedom, the ability to choose, is also essential to well-being, says the happiness report. But freedom permits people to do self-destructive things that reduce happiness. ...

Comments

[ZZMike]

Happiness is an elusive concept, even an elusive state of mind. I may be happy one day, unhappy the next. What makes me happy may make another unhappy.

The Founders felt that the pursuit of happiness was one of the main rights of man. But let each pursue it in hos own way, not in some sort of government-approved lockstep.

Then there are some who aren't happy unless they're miserable.

[John]

Happiness is the now-and-forever Mystery that IS the Real Heart and the Only Real God of every one.

The word that most aptly indicates what every one is seeking is Happiness. At heart, and fully everyone desires Happiness, although in some sense people would not even confess that Happiness is what they truly want - because they feel (and have even been taught) that the REAL attainment of Happiness is not even possible here and now, in this and every moment. Nevertheless, truly and always, this is what we our heart desires - Unalloyed, Unchanging, Absolute HAPPINESS. The "problem", simply stated, is that we are not any good at getting It! And we have no idea as to WHAT True Happiness Really IS.

Indeed our entire "culture" essentially teaches us to be unhappy. As do our religions which teach us that happiness is only possible somewhere else and in the next lifetime, in "heaven" - and then only if we are "good" in this life time.

[rental mobil]

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