Increasing happiness is not a task of government

Happiness is a subjective term which differs between different persons and between different moments in time (Miller, 2008). Von Mises also came to the conclusion in Human Action (1949) that there is no possibility to measure the happiness between different people or between different moments in time. But Kahneman & Tsversky (2000) were able to relate happiness to brain activity and Layard (2005) also concluded that happiness can be measured. Let's just assume that happiness can indeed be measured. Would it be favourable? And what would happen to society if governments adapt their policies to the maximalization of happiness? To answer these questions, I will use three ideas by happiness guru Richard Layard by which he thinks happiness can be increased.

Rat race

According to Layard, status competition is a 'rat race' that produces always someone who loses who becomes very unhappy because of his loss. Therefore, Layard pleads for taxation on all kinds of advertising that could lead to status competition. He also pleads for progressive taxation, which could decrease the race to achieve a higher income. So when the goverment wants to maximalize happiness, it has to discourage status competition by taxing advertising and by introducing higher taxes for higher incomes. But isn't it competition that leads to welfare? And if happiness is relative, isn't it competition that makes people perform better? And if so, doesn't discouragement of competition lead to economic downfall? It is clear that Layard thinks that economic growth is inferior to happiness growth, which he even confirmed in his book Happiness (2005).

Happiness is relative

According to Layard, a persons happiness depends on his relative income compared to that of the people in his or her social environment. Person A could become very unhappy when his neighbour, person B, buys a car that is more expensive than he could ever afford. When the government wants to maximalize happiness, person A can ask the government to prevent person B from buying that car, because it would make person A very unhappy. There is no doubt about the immorality of these kind of situations. It is not the prohibition of the expensive car that should increase the happiness of person A, but his right to the freedom to work for a similar car.

Leisure time

Layard divides the time in a persons life into two categories: labour time and leisure time. Because leisure time makes people happy, Layard pleads for a higher taxation on income to make leasure time cheaper when compared to labour time. But where labour leads to productivity and productivity leads to welfare, discouraging labour will lead to economic downfall, just like Layards previous argument. Besides, most forms of leisure time do have costs. Costs that could only be financed, indeed, by labour.

Conclusion

It is ironical that all policies that Layard pleads for to increase happiness lead to a very unhappy society. Happiness should be increased by higher taxes and discouragement of labour and competition. To introduce these kinds of policies, government should be extremely active in following peoples daily activities. More control is needed to see if people don't work too much. More control is needed to measure how happy people are. More control is needed to judge if advertisements don't increase status competition. More control is needed to detect undeclared employment. Therefore, quite rightly, Steele (2006) calls Layard a socialist utilitarian that tries to introduce his ideology by calling it social science. Of course, all these freedom limitations do not increase happiness. Veenhoven (2000) found that more correlates positively with more happiness.

Layards ideas, in which he wants to discourage labour and competition, are harmful to economic growth. Despite the fact that Layard thinks that economic growth is inferior to happiness growth, it is economic growth that léads to more happiness (Wolfers & Stevenson, 2008). Friedman (2005) also concluded that happiness can only be increased by economic growth because people judge their own happiness by comparing themselves to the generation before them.

Examining Layards view on happiness leads to the conclusion that only a free society without a big controlling government can lead to more happiness. Barrotta (2008) confirms this conclusion by claiming that only autonomous individuals have the knowledge to decide what makes them happy and that policy should therefore focus on individual freedom because freedom leads to happiness, like Veenhoven (2000) said too. It is not a coinsidence that the American Constitution gives a right to the pursuit of happiness instead of the right to happiness itself. Therefore, increasing happiness is not governmental task.

　

References:

Barrotta, P. (2008). Why economists should be unhappy with the economics of happiness. Economics and Philosophy, 24, 145-165.

Eberling, R.M. (2007). The new happiness economics: an Austrian critique. Beschikbaar:

http://mises.org/journals/scholar/ebeling2.pdf

Friedman, B.M. & Myers, J.J. (2005). The moral consequences of economic growth. Knopf.

Kahneman, D. & Tversky, A. (2000). Choices, values and frames. Cambridge University Press,

673-692.

Layard, R. (2005). Happiness: Lessons from a new science. Penguin Books.

Miller, A. (2008). A critique of positive psychology-or ‘the new science of happiness’. Journal of Philosophy Education, 42, 591-608.

Steele, G.R. (2006). Richard Layard’s happiness: Worn philosophy, weak psychology, wrong method and just plain bad economics! Political Quarterly, 77, 485-492.

Stevenson, B. & Wolfers, J. (2008). Economic growth and subjective well-being: Reassessing the Easterlin paradox. Brookings Paper on Economic Activity, 1, 1-102.

Veenhoven, R. (2000). Freedom and happiness. A comparative study in 46 nations in the early 1990’s. MIT Press, Cambridge, 257-288.

Von Mises, L. (1949). Human Action. Yale University Press. 621.

　

Is de PVV de oplossing voor ons integratievraagstuk?

Geert Wilders domineerde het politieke toneel in 2010. Waardoor wordt het succes van de PVV verklaard? En waarom leidt massa-immigratie in Nederland tot een ongekend drama, terwijl een wereldstad als New York juist is gebouwd op immigranten? Door een blik te werpen op de ontwikkelingen in de tijd van de problemen rondom integratie in Nederland zal blijken dat het succes van Wilders is gebaseerd op het falen van zijn politieke opponenten. Echter zal ook blijken dat de oplossing van Neerlands integratievraagstuk recht tegenover de ideologie van de PVV staat.

Nederland, jaren ’60: Nederland kent een enorme vraag naar arbeidskrachten. De politieke elite start met wervingsacties in met name Turkije en Marokko. Vanwege het feit dat de vraag vooral komt vanuit de industrie worden deze wervingsacties specifiek gericht op laagopgeleiden. De immigranten krijgen het stempel ‘gastarbeider’ opgedrukt: hun verblijf zal immers tijdelijk zijn. Mede daardoor loopt de politieke elite niet warm voor integratiebeleid.

Nederland, jaren ’80: Mede door de economische crisis wordt Nederland geconfronteerd met hoge werkloosheidscijfers. Door de eenvoudige toegang tot sociale zekerheid heeft het leeuwendeel van de immigranten van de zestiger jaren het inmiddels dermate goed dat terugkeer wordt uitgesloten. Echter, de meeste immigranten komen in een vicieuze cirkel terecht: door een gebrek aan opleiding en integratie blijkt toegang tot de arbeidsmarkt buitengewoon ingewikkeld. Daardoor is contact met Nederlanders op bijvoorbeeld de werkvloer nauwelijks aan de orde, terwijl juist dit contact van essentieel belang is voor hun integratie. Daardoor treedt er een proces van segregatie op: immigranten worden afhankelijk van landgenoten, gaan daarom bij elkaar wonen en daardoor ontstaan er complete wijken waar geen woord Nederlands wordt gesproken.

Nederland, jaren ’90: De zegeningen van de tweede en derde generatie immigranten lijken zich te openbaren. Op een paar uitzonderingen na zit het leeuwendeel in de sociale zekerheid en een aanzienlijk deel klust bij in het criminele circuit. De politiek is inmiddels bij monde van politici als Bolkestein enigszins wakker geschud maar daadkracht is ver te zoeken. De werkende klasse in Nederland wordt inmiddels dus geconfronteerd met twee problemen: men mag de rekening betalen van zowel de sociale zekerheid als van de toenemende criminaliteit. De onvrede onder de werkende klasse is dan ook niet meer dan terecht.

Nederland, vanaf 2000: Pim Fortuyn is de eerste politicus die middels een geweldig charisma handig weet in te spelen op deze onvrede. Nadat hem de mond wordt gesnoerd blijft het integratieprobleem groeien en de daarbijbehorende onvrede bestaan: Geert Wilders wordt haar spreekbuis. Daar waar een partij als de Pvda geen oplossing durft te noemen voor het integratievraagstuk en inmiddels zelfs in het flinke gat in de markt, de vertegenwoordiging van de allochtone kiezer, duikt, roept Wilders op tot behoud van de sociale zekerheid en het sluiten van de grenzen. Echter, de oplossing ligt juist in het tegenovergestelde.

De Verenigde Staten kennen een veel minder genereus stelsel van sociale zekerheid dan Nederland. Immigranten weten dan ook wanneer zij in de VS aankomen, dat ze hun handen niet hoeven op te houden, maar uit de mouwen moeten steken. Men dient te werken voor een bestaan. Daardoor is New York gebouwd op immigranten terwijl Amsterdam zucht onder massa’s werkloze onaangepaste immigranten. Het integratievraagstuk in Nederland kent dus maar een oplossing: zet het mes in het vlees der sociale zekerheid en trek dat mes door tot op het bot. Immigranten zullen moeten werken om hun levensbehoeften te bekostigen, immigranten die niet willen werken zullen niet eens meer de moeite nemen hierheen te komen omdat ze geen toegang meer hebben tot sociale zekerheid. Dat zal leiden tot fors lagere werkloosheid onder immigranten en het als sneeuw voor de zon verdwijnen van het onderscheid tussen immigranten en de werkende klasse: immigranten worden namelijk onderdeel van de werkende klasse. Ze zullen moeten samenwerken met autochtone werknemers, hetgeen hen perfecte integratie biedt. Daardoor zullen de voormalige spanningen sterk verminderen en zal dit leiden tot een welvarende en harmonieuze samenleving.

War is business

The Dutch government gave political support to the American/British invasion in Iraq in 2003. Was this invasion based on the battle against international terrorism or because Saddam Hussein was such a terrible dictator and had weapons of mass destruction? Or was this invasion based on completely different interests?

Bush is known as the President who started the 'war on terror' in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Dick Cheney was vice-President during both Bush-administrations. Before the invasion of Iraq, Cheney was CEO of Halliburton, a big supplying company in the energy industry. This organization received numerous governmental contracts in Iraq. Cheney's wife is a former board member of Lockheed and his son-in-law worked as a lobbyist for Lockheed. Lockheed produces warplanes.

In the Netherlands it was Prince Bernhard who had his interest in warfare, due to his memberships of the 'Sturmabteilung' of the Nazi Party in Germany and his position as inspector-general of the Dutch battle forces. This interest became clear when he accepted more than one million dollar in bribes from Lockheed to force the Dutch government to buy planes that were produced by Lockheed.

Decisions about such invasions aren't only being taken by democratic ways, but there's also negotiation about it in the Bilderberg conferences. These are secret meetings, attended by those who lead our world, both political and economical. Attendants are people like Bush, Rumsfeld, top bankers like Rockefeller, and several influential people from multinationals like Shell. Examples of Dutch attendants are former prime-minister Balkenende, Queen Beatrix and Prince Bernhard. Accidentally, Prince Bernhard has been chairman of these Bilderberg meetings for more several decades.

The 'war on terror' is today being used in the United States to increase the power of the federal government on its citizens. In 2003, the Patriot Act was introduced as an act against terror. It gave the federal government access to telephone data, email data and banking data. The in Europe worshipped Obama continued this Patriot Act and intensified the war in Afghanistan by sending 30.000 extra soldiers.

That the hunderds of thousands of innocent citizens that got killed and the 6000 soldiers that returned home in a bodybag, where not a reason to withdraw troops, shows how enormous the interests of this war are by those in Power in Washington en The Hague. A popular verb among soldiers and conservatives is 'freedom is not free'. That is correct: our freedom is being threatened by those who have an interest in warfare. It is time that WikiLeaks shows us the interest of all those in power who supported the invasion, so that we the people can judge it. Or do you really believe that Osama is still in Afghanistan?