[Mb-civic] The hippies were right all along about happiness By Andrew Oswald

[Michael Butler]

:
The hippies were right all along about happiness
By Andrew Oswald
Published: January 18 2006 20:28 | Last updated: January 18 2006 20:28

Economy Politicians mistakenly believe that economic growth makes a nation
happier. “Britain is today experiencing the longest period of sustained
economic growth since the year 1701 ­ and we are ­determined to maintain
it,” began Gordon Brown, the chancellor of the exchequer, in his 2005
Budget speech. Western politicians think this way because they were taught
to do so. But today there is much statistical and laboratory ­evidence in
favour of a heresy: once a country has filled its larders there is no point
in that nation becoming richer.

The hippies, the Greens, the road protesters, the downshifters, the
slow-food movement ­ all are having their quiet revenge. Routinely derided,
the ideas of these down-to-earth philosophers are being confirmed by new
statistical work by psychologists and economists.

First, surveys show that the indus­trialised nations have not become
happier over time. Random samples of UK citizens today report the same
degree of psychological well-being and satisfaction with their lives as did
their (poorer) parents and grandparents. In the US, happiness has fallen
over time. White American females are markedly less happy than were their
mothers. Second, using more formal measures of mental health, rates of
depression in countries such as the UK have increased. Third, measured
levels of stress at work have gone up. Fourth, suicide statistics paint a
picture that is often consistent with such patterns. In the US, even though
real income levels have risen six­fold, the per-capita ­suicide rate is
the same as in the year 1900. In the UK, more encouragingly, the suicide
rate has fallen in the last century, although among young men it is far
greater than decades ago. Fifth, global warming means that growth has
long-term consequences few could have imagined in their undergraduate
­tutorials.

None of these points is immune from counter-argument. But most commentators
who argue against such evidence appear to do so out of intellectual habit or
an unshakeable faith in conventional thinking.

Some of the world’s most innovative academics have come up with strong
evidence about why growth does not work. One reason is that humans are
creatures of comparison. Research last year showed that happiness levels
depend inversely on the earnings levels of a person’s neighbours.
Prosperity next door makes you dissatisfied. It is relative income that
matters: when everyone in a society gets wealthier, average well-being stays
the same.

A further reason is habituation. Experiences wear off. A joint intellectual
effort by psychologists and economists has got to the bottom of the way
human beings adapt to good and bad events. Some researchers believe that
after a pay rise people get used to greater income and eventually return to
their original happy or unhappy state. Such hedonic flexibility also works
downwards. Those who become disabled recover 80 per cent of their happiness
by three years after an accident. Yet economics textbooks still ignore
adaptation.

A final reason is that human beings are bad at forecasting what will make
them happy. In laboratory settings, people systematically choose the wrong
things for themselves.

Yet surely, it might be argued, what about power showers, televised
football, titanium wristwatches, car travel for all ­ are these not
compelling evidence for the long arm of growth? Yes they are, but we need
these because Mr and Mrs Jones have them, not because they make an intrinsic
difference.

Economists’ faith in the value of growth is diminishing. That is a good
thing and will slowly make its way into the minds of tomorrow’s
politicians. Led by the distinguished psychologist Edward Diener of the
University of Illinois, a practical intellectual manifesto signed by many of
the world’s researchers, entitled Guidelines for National Indicators of
Subjective Well-Being and Ill-Being, has just begun to circulate on the
internet. That document calls for national measures of ­separate facets of
well-being and ill-being, including moods and emotions, perceived mental and
physical health, satisfaction with particular activities and domains, and
the subjective ­experience of time allocation and ­pressure.

Happiness, not economic growth, ought to be the next and more sensible
target for the next and more sensible generation.

The writer is professor of economics at the University of Warwick. This
article is extracted from a lecture to be delivered today as part of the One
World Week summit at the university