Kes DaoodYoung Economist of the YearMs Keen
Should governments go for growth or for happiness?
‘The greatest happiness for the greatest number’[1] is the ethical foundation used for nearly all first world countries. For example the importance of happiness is perpetuated by one of the founding fathers of the American constitution; Benjamin Franklin ‘The Constitution only guarantees the American people the right to pursue happiness.You have to catch it yourself.’ Jeremy Bentham and his quest to ingrain utilitarianism into modern society can be seen as a resounding success, if we are to look at the constitutional aims for countries now considered civilised and prosperous in our modern world.
‘There are two things to aim at in life: first, to get what you want; and after that, to enjoy it.’[2] Ultimately we must ask ourselves ‘What brings us happiness?’ There is one universal agreement that we can make, as the previous quotation conjectures: the fulfilment of wants brings us happiness. All pleasure stems from fulfilling wants, and people can want anything. This also answers the question of ‘What is suffering?’. Suffering is simply the depravation of wants, and quite often needs that are wants.
It has often been perpetuated that ‘A government's first duty is to protect the people.’[3] I strongly disagree and perceive this as misinterpretation of the truth. Instead we must look closely at the democratic process where supply and demand occurs on a grand scale. Political parties make pledges over which policies they will supply in order to fulfil the demands of citizens. If one political party promises to fulfil more demands than another, they will successfully secure dominance through the ballot box.
Thus, we can see that first duty of government is in fact to fulfil citizens’ wants within a country. If the citizens want the government to protect them, then it is a government’s duty to fulfil that want and protect its citizens. However, as a government’s first duty is to fulfil its citizen’s wants, a government’s first duty is also to provide its citizens with happiness, because we have agreed that the fulfilment of wants is what brings people happiness. This explains why happiness is ingrained within most first world constitutions.
As a government’s first duty is to fulfil its citizen’s happiness, we could easily dismiss the stated question and conclude that governments should aim for happiness. However, if we are to further examine the premise that happiness is the fulfilment of wants, we can see that this is closely linked with economic growth.
Let us observe for a minute the economic question; scarcity ‘How to fulfil infinite wants, with finite resources.’ Subsequently we can see that the whole basis for economics is the fulfilment of wants, and therefore the maximisation of happiness. ‘Capitalism made it possible to become wealthy by serving (fulfilling wants of) your fellow man.’[4] Capitalism operates through the supply and demand mechanism, which is ultimately an agreement forged by wants; the supplier wants something from the consumer, and in return the consumer wants something back from the supplier. If people want something (it is demanded), then it will be supplied (by suppliers). By linking economics to the fulfilment of wants, through supply and demand, as I have demonstrated through the democratic process, we can see that economics is in fact a means by which we achieve happiness.
Consequently, we can see that the question posed is stating a false dichotomy: it is asking should governments go for happiness, or a means that will achieve happiness? This problem makes the question somewhat harder to answer. However, instead we can interpret the question differently: ‘Should governments focus on growth (a means of achieving happiness) or happiness (achieved by other means)?’ If the question is stated like this, we must ask ‘by what other means we can achieve happiness?’ The easiest way to do so is to observe which wants economic growth does not fulfil for us.
Economics fulfils material wants and wants for services to us. Subsequently, I believe that the major wants this therefore excludes are emotional wants (This includes wants for love of items, such as family, art and knowledge. It also includes the want for compassion with others and fairness and equality) and political wants (This includes wants for justice, freedom and equality in the eyes of the law. Also the functioning of the political process is included).
We must now ask ourselves how these are achieved, before answering whether the government should concentrate on these or economic wants. Emotional wants are usually achieved through social legislation, such as the Sex Discrimination Act 2002 allowing political parties to positively discriminate against men, in order to increase fairness and equality for women. Political wants are usually achieved through reforming the constitution, such as the Great Reform Act 1832, allowing a larger number of people to vote.
Before we continue is it important that we accept that these wants are relative to each country. For instance, in Britain there is reasonable evidence that we have a strong economy; we have the sixth largest GDP (nominal) on Earth[5], or seventh if you are to include the Eurozone. However, Britain is placed as the 74th when surveyed on its happiness[6].With David Cameron’s creation of the ‘Big Society’ and often referring to British society as ‘broken’ we can conclude that there must be a want, in Britain, for social reform, rather than more economic reform, otherwise the citizens of this country would not have provided the conservatives with more votes than any other party (36.1% of the vote).
However, in a country such as Libya we can conclude that there are strong political wants, due to the protests over Colonel Gaddafi’s authoritarian dictatorship, rather than social or economic wants. Therefore it is impossible to make a judgment about every country on Earth, but instead we must ask which wants can a government fulfil and when should they try to fulfil them, in order to answer the stated question.
Needs are a form of wants, but when they are not met the unhappiness grows exponentially; this is because if needs are not met, people will die, whereas when wants are not met, people will simply suffer. Thus we can accept that countries should first concentrate on meeting the needs of their people. One way to do so is a welfare system, such as in Britain, to ensure that every human’s basic needs are met in order for them to survive.
We must ask now, which wants government’s can most easily fulfil, and therefore which they should concentrate on in order to create happiness. Governments are most efficient in focusing on political wants, as they hold direct power to change the constitution and legal system in a country. The government also has relative power in dealing with economic matters, as they can control fiscal and monetary policy.
However, governments lack power over social wants. Take for instance the abolition of apartheid in South Africa where a plethora of social legislation did not fully combat the problem of racism. Education is a more effective way of pushing through social legislation and evidence of it is dotted throughout the PSHE curriculum. However, teaching students how to think is a controversial topic and many would compare any institution teaching people how to think to one of Fascism and unitary ideology (for instance the Hitler Youth). Ultimately, social wants are much harder for a government to fulfil as they deal with the way society chooses to act and therefore society will always be reluctant to accept social policy.
This poses a tricky question for governments; do people know what they want, if they cannot think or choose correctly? As we can see from social policy, it appears that they do not know what they want otherwise there would be no need for social reform. The same can be said about economics; negative externalities are the result of people acting as they wish to, but are bad for the whole society. There has also been a constant debate between supporters of virtual representation[7] and direct representation[8] begging the question ‘Do people know what they want politically?’ Was George Orwell’s 1984, where Winston appears happier at the end of the book, despite now living a lie after the government changing what he wanted for the ‘best interests of the nation’, a warning or a blueprint? Is it better to live a nice lie or a horrid truth? Worryingly, many utilitarian’s would choose the former.
Ultimately it is assumed that people do know what they want when choosing their governments. The reason for doing so is to avoid a potential dictatorship that would provide long term suffering to the people. A politician may come to the conclusion that people do not know what they want, then cause the people prolonged suffering by trying to enforce what he believes is right, when in reality it is wrong.
The next question we must answer is how the government (suppliers) know what is demanded by the citizens (consumers). In business this problem is overcome through market research. It is often accepted elections depict what people want, but this makes two assumptions; the elections are representative of the people and they are conducted often enough to keep the ‘market research’ current. In Britain it is often argued that the first past the post system is not representative, due to parties gaining a different amount of parliamentary seats to votes. Also, elections in the UK are not conducted often enough to keep the ‘market research’ fresh, hence protests surrounding government policy that is not demanded by its citizens. A key difference between business and government is that if in business, you do not conduct market research, competitors will overwhelm you, however for a government there is no such problem as it has a monopoly over its own people.
Thus I believe that the following actions need to be taken, to combat these problems. First we need a parliament that represents the people, using a system of proportional representation, so we can truly ascertain the country’s demands. Secondly voting should be moved to an electronic based system, over the internet, to reduce the cost of elections, so they can be conducted yearly. Thirdly, the people should be able to sign petitions on the voting based system, again conducted electronically, so the government can see which specific policies people demand (if 50% of the country vote against a governments policy, the government should not be allowed to carry out that policy, as it is not demanded). Lastly a governmental department needs to be created to first measure the happiness of the British people and secondly to conduct continuous market research into what people want.
Governments should go for happiness, in order to fulfil their consumers’ wants. However, this can be achieved in several different ways and is relative to each country. It is the endless debate between the politician (political wants), philosopher (social wants) and economist (economic wants); in which all believe that they are more important than one another. Rather than arguing with each other, they should consult the consumers and then come to a joint conclusion about the best way forward. When you argue in business and there is competition, you go bust. When you argue in business and you are a monopoly, you carry on inefficiently. The government is currently an inefficient monopoly and has a moral responsibility to consult its consumers, before its consumers can no longer afford to pay the price their supplier demands.
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[1]Francis Hutcheson’s ‘Inquiry concerning Moral Good and Evil’(1725).
[2] Logan Pearsall Smith’s‘Afterthoughts’ (1931).
[3] Ronald Reagan. Also see September 29th 2010 David Cameron and Nick Clegg in their foreword to the Coalition’s programme for government.
[4] Walter E. Williams, John M Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics atGeorge Mason University
[5] ‘The International Monetary Fund 2010’, ‘The World Bank 2009’ and ‘The CIA World Factbook 2010’.
[6] Happy Planet Index 2009.
[7] Edmund Burke’s ‘Reflections on the Revolution in France’ (1790).
[8] Thomas Paine’s ‘Rights of Man’ (1791).