So much of U.S. social policy is based on the idea that our nation is better when each of our citizens has more money. In our government’s orientation, it is the accumulation of capital that produces both individual happiness and community harmony. And yet countless studies have documented the fact that income — once an individual surpasses poverty-level wages — has no impact on happiness whatsoever. And yet so much of what our government attempts to do is based on increasing incomes rather than improving the conditions that do produce happiness: health, education, community connectedness, etc.
A new book by Derek Bok and published by Princeton University Press, “The Politics of Happiness: What Government Can Learn from the New Research on Well-Being” is going on the very top of my “to read” list. This is a brief description from the publisher:
During the past forty years, thousands of studies have been carried out on the subject of happiness. Some have explored the levels of happiness or dissatisfaction associated with typical daily activities, such as working, seeing friends, or doing household chores. Others have tried to determine the extent to which income, family, religion, and other factors are associated with the satisfaction people feel about their lives. The Gallup organization has begun conducting global surveys of happiness, and several countries are considering publishing periodic reports on the growth or decline of happiness among their people. One nation, tiny Bhutan, has actually made “Gross National Happiness” the central aim of its domestic policy. How might happiness research affect government policy in the United States–and beyond? In The Politics of Happiness, former Harvard president Derek Bok examines how governments could use happiness research in a variety of policy areas to increase well-being and improve the quality of life for all their citizens.
Bok first describes the principal findings of happiness researchers. He considers how reliable the results appear to be and whether they deserve to be taken into account in devising government policies. Recognizing both the strengths and weaknesses of happiness research, Bok looks at the policy implications for economic growth, equality, retirement, unemployment, health care, mental illness, family programs, education, and government quality, among other subjects. Timely and incisive, The Politics of Happiness sheds light on what makes people happy and the vital role government policy could play in fostering satisfaction and well-being.
The New York Times gave the book a review this past weekend, and while the review is worth reading, I discount most of its negative commentary. The reviewer, Alan Wolfe, seems hostile to the entire field of behavioral economics and makes several poorly founded arguments against the book’s themes. For one, he questions whether it is the role of government to attempt to maximize happiness. My counter argument is that government has no greater mandate to maximize family income, and yet it has been attempting to do just that in a thousand different ways. Governments make value choices. Why not place value on happiness? Wolfe also implies that the theories and findings produced by the larger field of behavioral economics are not really trustworthy. To counter that incorrect assertion I can only say that the field is growing in respect and voluminous documentation because hundreds of respected academics are contributing a great deal of time, resources and intellectual capital into proving its merit. There is more than 30 years of research showing that, indeed, often what we thought would make us happy actually does not, and more broadly in B.E. literature, that human beings are not the great rational, economically motivated people our government usually assumes them to be.
The NYTimes review does have enough key points from the book itself to convince me that it is worth buying and reading.
About Michael Hamill Remaley
Michael Hamill Remaley is the President of Hamill Remaley Communications. Previously, he was Director of Communications at the Russell Sage Foundation and Prior to that was Vice President and Director of Communications at Public Agenda. He has held a variety of positions at organizations such as The Harwood Institute for Public Innovation, The Pew Charitable Trusts, TCC Group and the Center for Social Policy and Community Development.
Happiness is a state of mind that really depends how we see the situations in our lives each day. you can have all the riches in the world but still see it as a lonely place.”’