Happiness
I have posted on political ideology being correlated with happiness. A story in the economist has this to say.
In 2004 Americans who called themselves “conservative” or “very conservative” were nearly twice as likely to tell pollsters they were “very happy” as those who considered themselves “liberal” or “very liberal” (44% versus 25%). One might think this was because liberals were made wretched by George Bush. But the data show that American conservatives have been consistently happier than liberals for at least 35 years.
Perhaps more interesting though is the explanation one ‘expert’ gives:
Why should this be so? Mr Brooks proposes that whatever their repective merits, the conservative world view is more conducive to happiness than the liberal one (in the American sense of both words). American conservatives tend to believe that if you work hard and play by the rules, you can succeed. This makes them more optimistic than liberals, more likely to feel in control of their lives and therefore happier. American liberals, at their most pessimistic, stress the injustice of the economic system, the crushing impersonal forces that keep the little guy down and what David Mamet, a playwright, recently summed up as the belief that “everything is always wrong”. Emphasising victimhood was noble during the 1950s and 1960s, says Mr Brooks. By overturning Jim Crow laws, liberals gave the victims of foul injustice greater control over their lives. But in as much as the American left is now a coalition of groups that define themselves as the victims of social and economic forces, and in as much as its leaders encourage people to feel helpless and aggrieved, he thinks they make America a glummer place.
I actually think there is a great deal of merit to this. It seems to me that regardless of humans actually being determined, we have been biologically wired to operate optimally in a free will frame of mind. Those that have experiences that push towards determinism can generate resentment and a general unhappiness. I speak from personal experience in this regard. Having been continually rejected from prestigious graduate programs for a score on a standardized test that I can’t control has made me angry, bitter and unhappy. A large reason for my anger is my perception that I can’t control whether I get into these prestigious programs.
When you consider how other governments and economic systems work it becomes more clear just how important it is to design systems that sync with our biological need to perceive choice. Communism failed because it takes to much perception of volition from it’s people. Socialism’s failures most likely can be traced back to the same problem. Monarchies, despots, oligarchies, they all exceed a threshold in causing it’s people to perceive determinism in the outcome of their actions. Free markets and democracies on the other hand, to the extent that a state entity can facilitate the perception of volition, do the best job of doing so. Democracies give citizen a choice in what kind of laws should be applied to themselves while free markets gives consumers the maximal choice in determining what material things to populate their world with. Such choices bring about perception in volition and in turn allow our biology to run optimally.
I actually think the assertion that the biology of man is performs optimally in a free market democracy is a testable hypothesis. That is to say, one can probably show higher incidents of biological inefficiency in people living in a non-democracy. Along these lines, one could then make an argument that policy which reduces choice and increases determinism leads to institutional operation comes out of sync with our biological makeup. Passing universal health care at the federal level would push the citizenry’s perception of health care outcomes as being even more deterministic. Over time this would breed resentment and unhappiness as people biology operates in efficiently in a overly deterministic system.
Better to minimize federal policy. By its very nature it must violate human biology.
May 1st, 2008 at 12:59 pm
I agree that humans function best when they believe themselves to be in control, to have choice. I do have a couple of points to add though:
1. There is such a thing as too much choice. When given many options, people are more likely to simply throw up their hands and say screw it, or if they do decide on one, they are more likely to doubt their decision and believe that they may not have gotten the maximum with their decision. When given fewer choices, they are more likely to pick one and are more satisfied with that decision.
http://www.apa.org/monitor/jun04/toomany.html
I bring this up because capitalism has presented consumers with an abundance of choice, and though capitalism is the greatest economic system to date, it is not without its downsides. Plus I think these studies are cool.
2. I will have to disagree on the issue of universal healthcare creating unhappiness. I believe that any unhappiness engendered by the policy would be more than offset by access to healthcare, as well as better health. I think the numbers back me up, because with a quick google search of “happiest countries” I found that by many different measures countries with universal healthcare regularly ranked in the top 10. Countries like Denmark, Switzerland, Iceland, Canada, The Netherlands, Sweden, etc. all have the dread universal healthcare, yet their people are among the happiest in the world. Perhaps having the “-land” suffix has something to do with it, I don’t know. Americaland, anyone?