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Thursday, Aug. 30, 2007 JAPAN TIMES
Can Happiness be Legislated?
By DAVID HOWELL
LONDON — The question is topical because economists and other experts are
increasingly doubting whether existing policies, such as steps to increase
economic growth, really add to people's welfare and contentment.
In fact many surveys suggest the opposite — that as societies get richer
it is unhappiness, rather than happiness, that spreads as consumers have
bigger incomes and spend more.
So the argument goes that enlightened governments should put less emphasis
on dubious measures like gross national product and on maximizing national
income, and instead do more to make people generally happier.
It is certainly true that some of society's strongest needs, like a
cleaner environment, less crime on the streets, better education and so on
are already high state priorities, lying beyond the simple satisfaction of
material wants.
But whether governments should go beyond these basic public tasks and
attempt specific "happiness" policies is quite another issue. It is clear
that some policymakers think the time has come to do just this.
In Britain, the Prime Minister's Strategy Unit has been working on
possible new policies "with an explicit well-being focus," while the
leader of the Conservative opposition in Parliament, David Cameron, has
called for a national measure of gross national well-being to replace
gross domestic product as a policy goal.
Meanwhile, happiness research has grown in American universities, while
back in Britain books have poured out on the issue, including one by
professor Richard Layard, ambitiously titled "Happiness; Lessons from a
New Science."
The issue of what constitutes happiness, and whether it can be measured
objectively, has been argued out among philosophers for centuries, in fact
for millenniums. The idea that governments can now rise above conventional
economic measures and assess scientifically what makes people happier
seems deeply flawed.
Happiness may anyway mean quite different things within different
cultures. For example, Japanese research suggests that Asian ideas of a
satisfying lifestyle may contrast sharply with the sometimes frenzied
search for the happiness goals in the more individualistic Western
societies.
The truth is that no one knows the answer or ever will. Happiness is
personal and determined inside each one of us, and often changing from day
to day. Moreover one person's happiness, like building a beautiful new
house, or buying a glittering new car full of gadgets, or even acquiring a
lovely new girlfriend, is often somebody else's misery.
Many people just do not know what brings them happiness, and make things
up if asked. The Layard book even advances the bizarre view that it is a
person's level of income relative to others that makes someone happier. So
he implies that leveling out income disparities through more progressive
taxation will bring more life satisfaction and feeling of well-being all
round.
But there is very little evidence that this or any other "scientific"
policy will enlarge general happiness. There is some slight evidence that
as a society that is very poor grows a little richer people feel better,
although other grumbles and discontents soon set in. But it is not within
the power of governments to push people into being happier, and the
attempt to do so can have truly ugly results.
The whole argument about happiness and the omniscient state telling people
what is good for them is dangerously reminiscent of the dark "scientific"
doctrines that led to the totalitarian systems and the fascism that so
disfigured the 20th century. It shows clear signs of the technocratic itch
to construct a brave new world that led to such horrific outcomes when
tried.
None of this is to suggest that either governments or societies should be
governed by purely material concerns, nor that conventional economic
measures are a perfect guide to policy. It is right that communities
should want things — such as more green open spaces and less pollution —
that their own incomes cannot buy and that wise administrators should
decide how best to provide.
About the only solid evidence from all the happiness data and research is
that usually a stable family life, good marriage, financial security,
sound health, and a feeling that people around one can be trusted do help
contribute to individual happiness. Also, it appears that people with
deeply held faiths and beliefs are often more content with their lot.
But these can hardly be turned into official policy objectives and provide
no justification for busybody interventionists to dictate to people how to
behave.
Everyone has a right to the pursuit of happiness, as the American founding
fathers recognized way back in the Declaration of Independence. But it is
a right to be exercised by individuals. It is not for the state
authorities to determine which kind of happiness they should pursue.
Some countries have tried that. For example, the Kingdom of Bhutan
outlawed television, insisted that everyone wear national dress and
confined foreigners (mostly Nepalese) to camps, all in the name of
maximizing gross national happiness.
This is an example that no one wants to follow, and those urging
governments to adopt new happiness and well-being policies are not only
foolish but also playing with danger.
They should stick with the more modest aims of ensuring freedom, true
democracy and wise administration. Or lie down and rest until the impulse
to intervene in these fields has passed away.
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