It's all about
`The Happy'
Happy? Let's Sum It Up
Researchers tap the `dismal science' of economics to quantify well-being. It isn't money that leaves you feeling like a million. By Stuart Silverstein, Times Staff Writer, July 3, 2006.
Midway into his career as a professor, USC's Richard Easterlin deduced something that seemed astonishing, at least for an economist: Money doesn't buy happiness.
Grandparents and sages have said as much through the ages. Yet when Easterlin published his first happiness research in the 1970s, fellow economists brushed it off. "People don't take this as serious stuff," he said. "They think it's maybe cocktail party conversation."
Ever close at hand, the Oxford American Dictionary has this to say about the adjective `happy':
1. Feeling or showing pleasure or contentment. 2.fortunate 3. (of words or behavior) very suitable, pleasing...
Seems to me the word `satisfaction' should be in there somewhere, but far be it from me to second guess the OAD! OTOH, the OAD defines `freedom' as "a state of being free", which I find disturbingly vague.
Still, `the happy' is held dear by most of us...even if it is hard to point to `the one thing' that would make us all--happy.
The article offers this analogy:
If earning more money generally does surprisingly little or even nothing to make societies happier, they wonder, what works better? Good health? Marriage? Sex? By one reckoning, boosting the frequency of sex in a marriage from once a month to once a week brings as much happiness as an extra $50,000 a year.
Here's an interesting (if not predictable) correlation, equating sex to money! While this analogy is easy to understand some obvious qualifiers come to mind. With whom this increased sexual activity is engaged in could be a strong factor in determining how `happy' one would be about it...
If years of familiarity have led you to despise your spouse, there goes your $50,000!
Consider the sex study. Through surveys and some fancy math, economists essentially created a ladder of happiness and found that the extra sex and the extra $50,000 provided the same boost.
Oh, to be a fly on the wall during this brainstorming session! One can only imagine how the fifty thousand figure was arrived at...was this really determined by `fancy math' or is the answer as simple as saving the price of a weekly visit to a high class prostitute/gigolo, times fifty?
Okay, enough with the sex already! This is important stuff!
Happiness economics, its enthusiasts emphasize, isn't a touchy-feely enterprise. They say that it eventually could harness the power of economics to better benefit humanity and help guide public policy.
Their findings often suggest that, instead of focusing so heavily on economic growth, governments could turn more attention to things that might, in essence, cheer people up. The options include better medical care, greater job security and reduced crime. These cost money, but they don't necessarily put more cash in a person's pocket. [snip]
Wait, did you hear that? I think some neocon's head just exploded! If these three simple issues aren't the heart and soul of the progressive platform I don't know what is!
I'll be the first to admit that my head isn't screwed on too tight, but aren't these three issues the very basis for founding a government?
Now, why did the neocon's head explode? All three proposals are not just anti-free market, they're downright socialist!
Is socialism what it takes to make the happy?
You can't go by me, we Anarchists are all about socialism!
The study of happiness also attracts neuroscientists, sociologists and, in particular, psychologists. Economists sometimes collaborate with these experts, such as the one who teamed with psychologists in a study published Friday in the journal Science that reinforced the notion that money buys little happiness.
But other academics wonder if this is a place for money-minded number crunchers.
"I think whoever coined the term 'dismal science' was not that far off," said Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a prominent social psychologist at the Claremont Graduate University. He said economists "see things often so much out of context and so one-dimensionally.... I wouldn't mistake real life for what economists talk about." [snip]
Nope, it seems it's not the money at all, instead we have this:
Like psychologists, these economists bring human test subjects into the lab. For instance, McBride has explored people's reactions to various outcomes and situations in a game of chance, "matching pennies." He found that satisfaction suffers somewhat, even among big winners, when people hold high expectations.
Satisfaction also suffers when they find out that other players fared well. The urge not just to keep up with the Joneses but to surpass them is documented in many happiness studies.
(Put another way: Many people would welcome $6 if someone else got $5. But they'd be even happier with $5 if the other guy got $1.)
Mr. McBride's experiment uses a stacked deck. Nothing brings out the competitor in people like games of chance. In my honest opinion, living one's life in such a way as to `outdo' one's peers (the proverbial Jones's) is not the road to happiness but to misery because there's always someone who's doing better than you are.
Are you happy yet?
It's clear to Easterlin that happiness is found in other ways too. Ever the teacher, he advises young people that they will find more happiness if they pursue a career they love rather than one they think will pay better.
"People think they're going to be better off if they make more," Easterlin said. "What they don't take into account is that when they come home with more money, all of a sudden they decide, 'Well, now I need a Lexus.' "
Which explains a comment from UC Irvine's McBride. "People ask me all the time, 'What do you learn about happiness? What's the secret to happiness?' " McBride said. His standard answer, only half-kidding: "Low expectations."
You all know the parable about the man who was unhappy because he had no shoes until he came upon a fellow who had no feet...
I cut a considerable amount of this article for fair use considerations as well as the general direction this article took in defining `happy'.
Yes good citizen, this article focused on `happiness: personal' with little regard for the happiness of society as a whole.
Would I be wrong to posit that you can't have one without the other?
I ask how unhappy you would be living in a society where there was no poverty, no artificial barriers to your or anyone else's advancement, no social, racial or sexual inequality...how unhappy would that make you?
How unhappy would you be living in a society where all of your needs were met, a society that provided you and everyone else with a job that paid a guaranteed living wage, a free home, free education and free healthcare for life?
Would it suck because there were no `poor people' to look down on? Would it suck because there would be no criminals looking to steal from you because they already have everything they need?
Would you fall off your chair if I told you we could make this happen tomorrow? (Figuratively speaking, reality will be a lot harder as `some' don't think ending poverty is a good thing.)
Do you measure happiness as being a valued member of the team or by how many scalps you have hanging from your belt?
Do you value personal happiness over living in a society that promotes the general contentment of all of its members or would being a part of such a society make you `happy' enough?
Personal happiness or social happiness, it's not an either or question.
Thanks for letting me inside your head,
Gegner
