Can Wealth Make Us Happy? Sort of
Let's say that we could generate a graph with happiness in rows and wealth in columns. The curve slops perfectly upward. The more wealth you have, the happier you are; the less wealth, the less happy. The same goes for countries: poor countries are packed with people who are down in the dumps, whereas rich countries are overflowing with joyful souls.
It sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? If someone made an argument for free markets along these lines, it would be a perfect strawman to topple. And yet, this is precisely the straw man that many anti-capitalists thrill to thrash again and again. Of course we can't plot happiness this way. Human beings are not mechanistic creatures, and most everyone knows that the idea of happiness is bound up with much more than material possession (even if we also understand that we would all rather be rich than poor).
Somehow, however, our friend Rod Dreher is again at pains to point out that happiness does not equal wealth and he again flirts with the idea that perhaps government ought to get involved in curbing market excesses in order to drum up more happiness for everyone.
"Some happiness economists say that backing laws that give workers more time with their families would be helpful. Others say that raising taxes on the rich to discourage spending that drives the hedonic treadmill is called for. Because the disruptions of dynamic capitalism can fray the bonds of families and communities, restrictions on commerce could be justified for the sake of general well-being." But then he hastens to add, sensibly, that "involving the government in schemes to engineer happiness through legislation deserves skepticism, to say the least."
His article quotes Mises in praise of the industrial revolution, and that's good a thing because it suggests that he is broadening his reading beyond communitarian academics and the gaggle of green fools that he quotes in his book. And yet he still seems to miss the central point. The case for capitalism is not about whether the means to bliss is material possession. It is about whether people are made more or less better off (in every sense) but being left free to act and exchange as verses the only alternative: using the police state to prohibit peaceful action and mutually beneficial exchange.
And by the way, there is far too much trashing of prosperity going on these days. A century ago, at least the capitalists and socialists agreed that prosperity is better than poverty. Now we have a generation of activists hellbent on bringing down prosperity goof our own good. Remarkable.
At the end of Rod's article, there is a country list from a study that claims to plot happiness. It turns out that study actually received a great deal of attention last year. It turns out that the researchers--and I know nothing of their methods--do in fact generate a map that roughly correlates wealth and happiness, if we remember that issues of health, e.g., are mainly a reflection of wealth. I don't Rod would be entirely pleased if he looked more closely at this study.
Comments (2)
David J. Heinrich
Part of the problem is that happiness is a very difficult thing to define and understand. I've recently purchased a book, Owner's Manual to the Brain, where the author suggests replacing satisfaction with happiness as something to strive after.
He looks at happiness in a clearly defineable, but somewhat superficial way, basing his discussion on one particular definition of happiness (and I think his talk of satisfaction could be another definition of happiness). For example, about 10-20% of people are in a state of "permanent" happiness. These people are known as cheerleaders, and the always-upbeat marketing and sales guys. But lets just take cheerleaders. They are "blessed" with an almost constant state of bubbly happiness. But I don't think we'd all want to be like that, or always be around people like that; and one scarcely wants to imagine a world of people populated solely by the "constantly happy" bubbly cheerleader types.
The author's discussion of satisfaction is more interesting, and involves the full utilization of our potential and energies. For example, am I particularly happy right now? Well, no, not really; in fact, I'm recovering from a cold. I am however, at this moment, quite satisfied; I am using my mental abilities, and engaging in something interesting to me.
In any event, economists -- especially mainstream economists intent on the mathematical treatment of everything -- seem ill-equiped, qua economists, to deal with issues of happiness.
I do, however, doubt some of the studies suggesting that the people in wealthy nations are no-more "happy", in a meaningful sense, than those in poorer nations. The standards of these people have been upwards adjusted to account for their surrounding conditions. The overall "happiness" of one's life, or one's satisfaction of one's life, can be roughly put on a bell-curve, at least in people's minds. No matter how well off society as a whole is, there will always be some people who perceive that others are leading more meaningful satisfying lives than themselves, and there will always be some people who perceive vica-versa.
Of course, there's a lot of research on people often viewing themselves as "above average", when obviously everyone cannot be above-average. But, I think there are limits to this; I doubt the druggee prostitute on the street feels she's living a life as meaningful as others.
Published: January 30, 2007 12:14 PM
Y. Kang
(1) VALID HAPPINESS (including love, sense of beauty, symbiosis (good conscience, upholding justice, moral couraging, helping others, teaching…) bravery, etc.) must be the feeling of things being a step better for our propagation.
(2) WELL-BEING is the ongoing feeling of things going well step by step for our propagation.
(3) VALID SUFFERING must be the feeling of things being harmful to our propagation and calling us to prevent or rectify it.
(4) SOUL (including: personality, inspiration, etc.) is the computation results of both our instinct and pre-instinct data-programs in our brain.
(5) LIFE GOAL is to propagate.
All these are our instincts (ancestors’ successful experiences saved on DNA).
Right?
Published: January 10, 2009 11:14 PM