"Everybody Have Fun"

What can policymakers learn from happiness research? 

Elizabeth Kolbert: If “rising incomes have failed to make Americans happier over the last fifty years, what is the point of working such long hours and risking environmental disaster in order to keep on doubling and redoubling our Gross Domestic Product?”

To suggest that the U.S. abandon economic growth as a policy goal is a fairly far-reaching proposal. “The implications of this critique are profound”...

So we probably shouldn't expect our "leaders" to act on them. But we should be having that conversation.

Kolbert concludes:

As a long line of moral philosophers have noted, there’s more to life than subjective well-being. (“It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied” is John Stuart Mill’s famous formulation.) And happiness, at least as it’s defined by happiness studies, offers little guidance on many of the choices that matter most.

Consider again the finding that a half century of escalating consumption has not brought Americans increased satisfaction. This is a disturbing fact, and certainly one that seems pertinent to discussions of economic policy.

But let’s imagine, for a moment, that we had enjoyed ourselves for the past fifty years. Surely, trashing the planet is just as wrong if people take pleasure in the process as it is if they don’t. The same holds true for leaving future generations in hock and for exploiting the poor and for shrugging off inequality. Happiness is a good thing; it’s just not the only thing.