Why have happiness researchers been so slow to recognize the problems in using surveys to measure progress?

In my last post I pointed out that it is not possible to measure perceptions of progress accurately by using surveys to measure average life satisfaction at different times and then observe to what extent it has risen or fallen. As a result of changing reference norms, people who value an expansion of economic opportunities cannot necessarily be expected to show rising satisfaction with their lives in successive happiness surveys.

I have just discovered that a similar point was made by Francis Heylighten and Jan Bernheim over a decade ago, in an article that seems to have attracted little attention. The authors made the point as follows:

‘Progress could in principle be measured through the change over time of average scores of subjective well-being. However, the existing longitudinal data show little improvement. These survey results are intrinsically insensitive to developments over time, because SWB is typically evaluated relative to proximate, and therefore salient, reference points, such as peers or expectations based on recent experience’. See: Heylighen F. & Bernheim J.(2001): "Measuring Global Progress  Through Subjective Well-Being", in: Proceedings of the III Conference of the ISQOLS.

One of the suggestions that Heylighten and Bernheim made to correct this distortion was to develop a progress indicator from variables that explain a high proportion of cross-country differences in life satisfaction.

If that approach was followed to develop an indicator to measure perceptions of  progress, recent research by John Helliwell and Christopher Barrington-Leigh suggests that the relevant variables to include might be: the log of household income; whether the respondents had relatives or friends to count on if needed; whether the respondents were satisfied with their freedom to choose what to do with their lives; whether corruption was widespread in business and government; and whether they had donated money to a charity in the past month. Their analysis suggests that people in both high-income and low-income countries place about the same value on log income (use of logs allows for declining marginal utility of income) but people in high-income countries place more value on variables other than income. See: ‘Measuring and Understanding Subjective Well-Being’ Canadian Journal of Economics, 43 (3), 2010.

However, I’m not sure that the suggested approach would entirely solve the problem. It seems likely that perceptions that people in low-income countries have of the best possible life would involve a less opulent life-style than the perceptions of people in high-income countries i.e. perceptions of the best possible life rise with increasing wealth (and the marginal utility of income may not decline as rapidly as cross-country regressions seem to imply). In my view, that means it would be preferable to measure perceptions of progress directly using the method suggested in my last post, i.e. by comparing the answers that survey respondents provide when asked to rate their past lives at the same time as their current lives. An even better approach to measurement of progress, as suggested in the book I am writing, would be to identify the characteristics of good societies and measure to what extent societies were adopting those characteristics.

There may be a case to be made that the well-being of people in high-income countries would be higher if the move toward post-materialistic societies was more rapid. But the people who want to make that case should argue it openly, rather than pretending that responses to happiness surveys indicate that most people do not place much value on material progress.

Can happiness surveys help us to measure progress?

I have written about similar questions here before, but I’m not sure that I managed to get the message across to many people. The issues are not all that complex. I probably just need more practice in trying to explain them in simple terms.

The most obvious way to use happiness surveys to measure progress would be to use such surveys to measure average life satisfaction at different times and then observe to what extent it has risen or fallen.

Where is the problem in that? The main problem is that as a result of changing reference norms people who value an expansion of economic opportunities cannot necessarily be expected to show rising satisfaction with their lives in successive surveys.

What do I mean by changing reference norms? When we are asked to rate our satisfaction with life we do so relative to reference norms, such as by comparing our standard of living with that of people we know. Some surveys ask people to rate their lives relative to ‘the best possible life’, but our perceptions of ‘the best possible life’ may also change. For example, education may cause people to expand their horizons so they become less satisfied with a modest standard of living. The same kind of thing can happen when people move from rural to urban areas or obtain access to TV and the internet.  

So, if education tends to make people less satisfied with a modest standard of living, does that mean that they do not value the opportunities that education provides? It obviously doesn’t. Some people make large sacrifices to obtain educational opportunities, so it would be difficult to argue that they don’t value them.

The same reasoning applies to the benefits of technological progress. No-one could expect that people living in 1950 could have felt unhappy or dissatisfied - or sad, or angry even - because they did own personal computers or any of the numerous other amenities of modern life that had not then been invented.

The fact that we do not feel dissatisfied that we do not yet possess the products of future technological progress does not mean that such products will not enhance our future wellbeing and that of our descendants. It just means that we are fortunate to have emotional systems that enable us to give a high rating to our current lives if we can attain a standard of living that is somewhere near the upper bound of what it is currently possible for humans to attain.

Changing reference norms help our emotional system to adapt to changes in external circumstances, but that doesn’t mean that we should allow them to bias our judgements about changes in the quality of our lives.

Derek Bok, former president of Harvard, unwittingly provided a good example of the distorted perception that can arise when we ignore changing reference norms when he wrote:

‘As Americans adapt and yesterday’s luxuries turn into today’s necessities, people are naturally unwilling to give them up, but that does not mean that they are any happier than they were before the process began. Neither does it suggest that the products they yearn for in future will bring them any greater pleasure. What then is the justification for future economic growth?’ See: ‘The Politics of Happiness’, 2010, p 67.

The fallacy in that argument becomes obvious if it is applied to advances in medical science. Does the fact that people in high-income countries have adapted to advances such as the development of antibiotics, and now tend to view them as a normal part of life, mean that such advances have no value? In deciding whether or not we would be happier without advances in medical science, or any other product of technological change, the pertinent question to ask is whether we are obtaining a net benefit from it now. Adaptation may cause us to take for granted the benefits of technological progress, but it is our judgement of where our interests lie that makes us unwilling to give up the those benefits.

One way to eliminate the possible impact of changing reference norms is to ask survey participants to rate their lives at some point in the past (for example, five years ago) at the same time as they are asked to rate their current lives. Responses to such questions enable levels of individual flourishing to be gauged against historical benchmarks to show to what extent people feel that their lives have improved over time. My analysis of such data collected by the World Gallup Poll suggests that people tend to perceive the greatest improvement in their lives over the previous five years in countries where a high percentage of people consider that the national economy is ‘getting better’ and where rates of economic growth have been relatively high.*

Happiness surveys can help us to measure progress if they are used in the right way.

 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*The estimated regression equation is as follows:

LIFETODAY = -0.330 + 1.003*PASTLIFE + 0.015*ECONOMY + 0.037*GROWTH + 0.299*IMPGOV

                       0.290)  (0.044)                     (0.003)                      (0.017)                    (0.243)

Adjusted R² = 0.84. The figures in brackets are standard errors of the estimated coefficients.

102 countries were included in the analysis.

LIFETODAY is the average rating ‘life today’ from the Gallup World Poll (around 2008) which asks respondents to rate their current lives on a ladder scale with the ‘best possible life’ as the top rung.

PASTLIFE is the average rating of ‘life five years ago’ from the Gallup World Poll.

ECONOMY is percentage of participants in the Gallup World Poll who perceive that economic conditions in their country are getting better.

GROWTH is the estimated rate of growth in per capita GDP (rgdpl) from Penn World Tables over the preceding five years (2002-07).

IMPGOV is the improvement over the period 2002-07 in the average of the six World Bank Governance Indicators.

How should we describe the current imbalances within western democracies?

Nicholas Eberstadt’s answer to this question is fairly clear from the title of his recently published book, ‘A Nation of Takers, America’s Entitlement Epidemic’. Eberstadt describes the growth of welfare payments in the US, the decline of stigma against accepting help from the government and the growth of dependence on entitlements. He establishes that about half of the US population now live in households receiving some government benefits and more than 30 percent now receive means-tested benefits. He suggests that, with the growing numbers living on disability benefits, ‘gaming and defrauding of the entitlement system have emerged as a mass phenomenon in modern America’. He also suggests that the ‘taker mentality’ has gravitated toward ‘taking from a pool of citizens who can offer no resistance to such schemes: the unborn descendants of today’s entitlement-seeking population’.

The book also presents two dissenting views. William Galston argues that although many people have come to depend on entitlements to fund their living expenses, they have not become ‘dependent’ in the way that children are dependent on their parents. He suggests that much of the growth of welfare entitlements rests on ‘temporally extended interdependence’. One generation consents to helping to fund the retirement of their parents, with the expectation that the next generation will do the same for them. He acknowledges, however, that ‘something has gone awry’ when the current generation discharges its obligations by imposing heavier sacrifices on the next generation. He suggests that the moral issue is ‘generational selfishness’ rather than dependence. He agrees with Eberstadt that disability benefits are subject to serious abuse, but suggests that the willingness of people to take advantage of the system is not necessarily evidence of deep cultural change.

The main point made by Yuval Levin is that differences in vision about the relationship between government and the citizen – collectivism versus radical individualism – overlook the importance of the ‘space between the individual and the state’, which is occupied by the family, civil society and the private economy. He argues that the state gravely threatens the space for private life. He suggests that rather than dependence, the problem is more ‘a draining away’ of ‘civic energies by the effort required to sustain the liberal welfare state. The country ‘is increasingly exhausting itself’ not just because of the size of the entitlement and benefit regime but also because of its ‘immense inefficiency’. Levin suggests that rather than a nation of takers, America is ‘a nation at risk of becoming incapable of rising to the challenge of self-government’.

The different viewpoints presented in this book are highly relevant to some issues discussed in the book I am writing. One of the points I am making is that when governments relieve us of the need to exercise our power of self-direction, then our skills in running our lives will not develop properly and we are likely to remain dependent on government throughout our lives. That means I am in sympathy with the points that Nicholas Eberstadt is making. At the same time, the US does not seem to me to be a particularly promising place to look for evidence of dependence on welfare having a widespread adverse impact on the social fabric.

I also suggest in the book I am writing that there is a growing gap in many wealthy countries between the responsibilities that many people expect democratic governments to discharge and what governments are actually capable of delivering. Perhaps it could be described as a problem of dependence, in the sense of governments becoming addicted to ever more spending (despite rising debt levels or increased reliance on unstable revenue sources).

At times, I have described the problem as an expectations gap, implying that it has arisen because of inflated public expectations of what governments can do. But it isn’t particularly helpful to blame ‘the public’. The underlying problem is that political leaders who seek to place responsibilities on government that are beyond its capability do not suffer appropriate political consequences. So, we should be thinking about how political leaders could be persuaded to moderate their promises and focus more effort on delivering efficient government.

The diagram presented below seems to me to be a useful way to think of the issues involved.

It is interesting to consider where particular countries should be located on the diagram. The countries of southern Europe should obviously be placed near the bottom right hand side and the Scandinavian countries would be at the top right. Hong Kong might be toward the left at the top. But where should we place the US, or Australia?

Is there more economic freedom in Australia than in 'the land of the free'?

It is difficult to believe that there could be less economic freedom in the United States than in Australia, but that is what economic freedom indexes seem to show.

The Heritage Foundation’s index currently has Australia in 3^rd place, behind Singapore and Hong Kong, and the US in 10^th place. The Fraser Institute’s index currently has Australia in 5^th place and the US in 18^th place.

Both the Heritage Foundation and the Fraser Institute have economic freedom in the US declining below that of Australia around 2008.  See Figures 1 and 2 below.

The timing of the decline in US economic freedom as indicated by the Heritage Foundation’s index suggests that it may be largely associated with the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis, but the Fraser Institute’s index has the decline beginning around the turn of the century. According to the Heritage index the main decline in recent years has been with respect to financial and investment regulation, but the Fraser index also shows a decline in other areas, including freedom to trade internationally.

If the decline in US economic freedom was related solely to re-regulation of financial markets, it might be tempting to dismiss it as some kind of necessary evil. Well, it isn’t, but that will not stop me from suggesting that financial re-regulation has been far from benign in any case. Rather than side-track myself on that issue, however, I will just link to a highly relevant recent article by Ken Rogoff.

There are several reasons why Australians should not take comfort from indexes suggesting that we now have greater economic freedom that the US. The most obvious is that it has occurred as a result of a decline in economic freedom in the US, rather than any recent reform efforts in Australia.

The second reason is because the measurement of economic freedom is difficult. I think the Fraser Institute and Heritage Foundation should be applauded for their efforts to define economic freedom precisely enough to enable it to be measured, but I don’t think their indicators adequately capture all relevant aspects of the regulatory environment. For example, in 2008, just before he left Australia, Phil Burgess made some important points about the regulatory environment in this country that would be difficult to capture adequately in economic freedom indexes.

Before I proceed further, I should remind you that Phil Burgess was one of the ‘three amigos’ who came here to help Telstra through a difficult period. If that doesn’t ring any bells, you might remember the very wise - and very public – investment advice he gave to his mother about not buying Telstra shares because of what the government was then doing to squeeze profit out of that company, not long after selling it to gullible investors.

  

The comment that Burgess made concerns the degree to which the ‘public order’ tends to dominate the ‘civic order’ in Australia. What he was talking about was that, compared with other liberal democracies, government leaders in Australia have a very high capacity to frame and control the public dialogue by virtue of agenda setting, money and expectations management. Counterbalancing voices of legitimacy and authority in the civic order – including business - are, by contrast, often muted and ineffectual. He suggests that is associated with a greater tendency for the civic leadership groups to play an insider’s game and focus on influencing politicians.

I think Phil Burgess is probably correct in his judgement, but I don’t have sufficient knowledge of the US to be sure. If he is correct, it would be fair to say that economic freedom indexes tend to over-state the extent of economic freedom in Australia relative to the US.

My third reason for not taking comfort from indexes showing economic freedom higher in Australia than in the US is that public attitudes are still more supportive of economic freedom in the US than in Australia. Data from the World Values Survey suggests that Americans are more strongly in favour of the existence of large income disparities as incentives (i.e. less in favour of redistribution to make incomes more equal), less in favour of public ownership of business, somewhat more inclined to say that competition is good and less cynical on the question of whether success comes from luck and connections rather than hard work.

   

All that suggests to me that it would not make sense to bet my life savings that the economic freedom will be greater in Australia than in the US over the next few decades. The only problem is that my modest life savings are actually almost exclusively allocated towards investment in Australia. It might be time for a re-think!

Is the 'trial narrative' integral to emergence of the modern view of happiness?

‘Our own concept of happiness is, in its essentials, the eighteenth-century concept that emerges after the trial narrative has wrought its effects on the classical idea’

-                                                                       Vivasvan Soni, ‘Mourning Happiness’ (2010).

 Soni argues that happiness has come to be viewed as ‘a mere emotion or subjective state’ and that this view of happiness is ‘hopelessly and inescapably private’. He contrasts that with the classical view in which happiness was ‘held to be the highest good for an individual, almost without question’.

The author argues that the trial narrative, referred to in the quoted passage, was introduced by Samuel Richardson’s novel, ‘Pamela: Or Virtue Rewarded’, first published in 1740. The novel tells the story of Pamela, a young servant girl, who resists harassment by her sexually predatory master until he comes to recognize her virtue and marries her. It is appropriate to describe it as a trial narrative because it involves the trial of the virtue of an innocent girl who suffers a great deal of misery and eventually obtains happiness (so readers are told) through an elevation in social status (brought about by marriage to the man who almost raped her). There are similar narrative themes in other novels in this period. I suppose a novelist could tell a similar story in the modern world, but the reward for virtue would more likely come in the form of an out-of-court settlement of a large sum of money.

How could our modern concept of happiness emerge from the trial narrative? Soni’s answer is ‘reification’. The main point he is making is that when happiness is viewed as a reward it becomes identified with specific things such as positive feelings, wealth and marriage, rather than being the subject of a narrative which responds to the question of whether an individual has had a happy life (without specifying in advance what that might mean). The author spends a few hundred pages explaining this, so please don’t rush to judgement about the quality of the argument on the basis of my attempt to sum it up in a few words.

The general line of argument seems to me to be plausible. Trial narratives might not have been invented in the 18^th century, but the author seems to be successful in establishing that they became common around that time. His explanation for reification of happiness makes sense. 

However, there is an alternative, less complex, explanation for reification of happiness. With advances in science and technology and the spread of education following the Enlightenment it is reasonable to expect that people in Europe would generally have tended to became more aware of the consequences of the choices that they were making in all aspects of their lives.

The author seems to me to draw a long bow when he attributes the choices that some people currently make, for example the choice to work longer or harder now in order to obtain greater happiness later in their lives, to the power of the trial narrative in modern thinking. People may see themselves as making sacrifices now in order to obtain greater rewards later, but that is no reason to question their capacity for self-direction by implying that they are subconsciously following some kind of script which requires them to undergo a trial of their virtue.

The author attempts to link the trial narrative to Immanuel Kant’s argument that ‘the sovereign who wants to make the people happy according to his concepts’ is likely to become a despot. Surely Kant’s argument that people differ in their thinking about happiness to such an extent that it cannot be ‘brought under any common principle’ deserves to be considered on its merits. If pursuit of happiness is viewed as a collective goal, rather than an individual right, is there not a real possibility that collective efforts to make individuals happy will end up making them miserable?

I found Soni’s discussion of what he describes as ‘the erasing’ of the political concept of happiness during and following the American revolution to be interesting and illuminating. However, I don’t think he is correct in his view of the consequences of failure to include collective pursuit of happiness via government as an explicit goal in the US Constitution. He suggests that ‘without the open and indeterminate horizon of happiness to guide our politics, the state of legitimacy in which we live can have no other purpose beyond maintaining itself’ (p 479). That seems to me to devalue the intended role of the state in defending the rights of citizens to pursue happiness as they see fit and the contribution of civil society to the pursuit of public happiness. And I doubt whether he is correct in implying that Jefferson, the main author of the Declaration of Independence, saw individual pursuit of happiness as a purely private and domestic matter. It seems likely, as suggested by Darrin McMahon (‘Happiness’, p 325-6), that Jefferson's view of the individual pursuit of happiness included a strong dose of doing publicly useful things. McMahon notes that Jefferson was familiar with the work of Francis Hutcheson who argued that people tend to obtain ‘private pleasure’ by ‘constant pursuit of publick Good’.

It is interesting to speculate what effect the inclusion of a goal of pursuit of collective happiness in political constitutions might actually have on public policies. Bhutan’s experiment with gross national happiness (GNH) suggests to me that it would be likely to result in further reification of happiness. Applying a national happiness yardstick to all aspects of public policy tends to make the happiness objective more specific. Pursuit of GNH seems to be evolving increasingly toward specific policies such as discouraging smoking and encouraging organic farming. The niggling concern, lurking at the back of my mind, is that pursuit of GNH could actually impact negatively on the ability of individuals to live happy lives. Sending people to jail for possessing tobacco products or pesticides seems to me to be unlikely to help them to live happy lives.

Finally, I don’t think our modern view of happiness is quite as shallow as Soni implies. While it is common to view happiness as purely an emotion, when you ask people whether they have had a happy life the response you are likely to get is a narrative – a story of flourishing or languishing, or more likely periods of both flourishing and languishing. I am reminded at this point of the findings of Dan McAdams’ narrative research (discussed briefly on this blog here and here) which suggests that the life stories of many people involve redemption themes. In these stories the narrator encounters many obstacles and suffers many setbacks but eventually develops toward actualization of an inner destiny.

Having read and thought about ‘Mourning Happiness’ I admire the ambitious attempt made in this book to identify the dominant narrative theme in our modern lives. In the end, however, I am not persuaded that the dominant narrative themes in our modern lives stem from Richardson’s ‘Pamela’ and similar 18^th century novels. Perhaps it might be just as valid to argue that the dominant narrative themes in our modern lives stem from Homer’s ‘Odyssey’or the biblical story of Job. I suspect it might be an impossible task to identify the different themes in mutually exclusive ways and to disentangle their influence from other factors that impact on on the way we currently view happiness.

How should we get started with self-publishing?

A guest post by Sarah Rexman:

Getting a book published can be a long, uphill battle. After facing dozens of rejections, you may start thinking that you just don’t have what it takes – that maybe you weren’t really meant to be an author after all. The reality is that much more than talent determines whether your book will be accepted by a traditional publisher, including market trends, the timing, and even the person who happens to pick up your book from the slush pile.

You don’t have to wait for all these elements to align and get accepted by a traditional publisher in order to be published. With the increasing popularity of e-readers, many authors are finding success publishing their own books and selling them to readers directly.

Here’s what you need to know about how to get started with self-publishing to realize your dream of becoming a published author:

Choose an Outlet

There are many sites that sell self-published e-books, including giants Amazon, Smashwords and Lulu. Each of these sites has a different user base and different rules for how to format, upload, and distribute content. They also offer different models for compensation, with different commission rates based on the parameters you choose for selling your book.

Take the time to get to know each of these sites and decide if you want to sell on one of them or all of them and what the advantages and disadvantages will be.

Format Your Book

Once you know where you intend to sell your book, you can figure out how to properly format it. Each site will have its own guidelines for formatting the book, and it may take you awhile figuring out how to get your book just right to meet those guidelines.

You will also need to design a creative cover for your book. If you aren’t able to design the cover yourself, you can hire a freelance designer to create one for you.

Get Reviews

Good reviews will help you build buzz around your book and sell more copies. You can get more reviews for your book by sending it to bloggers, book reviewers for local publications, and even to family and friends.

While it is OK to ask for reviews from family and friends, you should be careful not to influence the content of those reviews. If your readers suspect that your reviews are not honest, they may reject your book.

Market Your Book

In addition to getting good reviews for your book, you must also market it to build buzz and promote sales. You can start a blog, host contests in which you give away copies of your book, or even buy online advertising to promote your book.

Don’t stop at formal marketing. Be prepared to talk up your book to anyone you meet. Carry business cards with information about your book. The next time someone asks you what you do, tell them that you’re a published author and hand them your business card.

Publishing your own book is not a difficult process, but it will take the same kind of dedication it took for you to write your book in the first place. When you’re finished, you will be able to say that you are a published author and can find success on your own terms.

Sarah Rexman is the main researcher and writer for bedbugs.org. Her most recent accomplishments include graduating from Florida State, with a degree in environmental science.  Her current focus for the site involves researching updated websites.

Addendum by Winton

Sarah’s offer of a guest post on this topic came at an opportune time since I am currently considering publication options for the book I am writing.

Self-publishing seems to me to be an attractive option for the reasons Sarah mentions, but also because it gives authors greater control of the process. I recently learned that authors often don’t even have much say over the titles for their books when they use traditional publishers.

The main considerations for me in choosing a method of self-publishing are to obtain a professional-looking product, access to the main sites that sell e-books and a small print run, while containing costs.

Jim Belshaw had some relevant discussion on his blog a few weeks ago.  Jim suggested that it might be worth considering use of an aggregator, such Australian e-book publisher (AEP) to put content into the right form and arrange for its lodgment with the e-store.  As Jim says, a price has to be paid for this, but it makes things simpler. Since AEP offers a range of different services it would not be necessary to get them to take over the whole publishing exercise.

Another option I am thinking about is the use of Dpublishing, which has links to Dymocks book stores. Dpublishing seems to provide good guidance on formatting etc and makes it easy to also have a printed version of the book. The downside is that Dymocks does not have links to Amazon, so I would need to arrange separately to get the book in suitable form to be sold on Kindle.

Postscript:

In the end I decided to publish the book as a Kindle eBook at Amazon. My comments can be found in a later post.

Is it the duty of government to realize the good life for all citizens?

‘If the first goal of the individual is to realize the good life for himself, the first duty of the state is to realize, insofar as it lies within its power, the good life for all citizens’.

The quoted passage is from ‘How Much is Enough?’(2012) by Robert Skidelsky - a biographer, economics professor and member of the British House of Lords - and his son. Edward, a philosopher.

Some readers might think that the quoted passage implies support for the view that it is the role of government to ensure that individuals have the freedom to realize the good life as they choose. That is far from what the authors have in mind, however.

Robert and Edward Skidelsky are unashamedly paternalistic in their views on the role of government. They recommend that governments should promote the good life by taxing the rich more heavily, imposing sumptuary taxes, regulating labour markets more extensively, disallowing tax deductions for advertising, and imposing more restrictions on international trade and capital flows. They see such interventions as necessary to ‘free up’ more time for leisure, reduce income inequality, improve the social bases of health, personality, respect and friendship, and help people to live in harmony with nature.

The authors describe their policy approach as ‘non-coercive paternalism’ because it involves incentives and disincentives rather than commands. Yet coercion must still be involved. The authors do not suggest that people who do not share the Skidelsky view of the good life would be exempt from compliance with their proposed taxes and regulations.

How do the authors make a case for paternalistic interventions to encourage people to live the good life? J M Keynes (later Lord Keynes), a famous economist, plays an important role in their story. In 1928, Keynes predicted that within 100 years humanity would be able to satisfy all its material needs by working at most three hours a day. For a time, it seemed as though this prediction might prove to be correct, because a substantial proportion of the benefits of rising productivity were being realized through greater leisure. The Skidelskys suggest that at the beginning of the 1970s it looked as though the rich part of the world was close to ‘the dawn of universal abundance’.

What went wrong? The explanation offered by the authors is that governments shifted to a market-based philosophy when Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan came to power. They acknowledge that free marketeers made some telling points about the crisis of Keynesian economics (the combination of rising unemployment and rising inflation) resulting from attempts to pursue full employment through fiscal deficits. But they claim that the oil price hikes of 1973 and 1979 played a bigger role in exposing economic rigidities and paving the way for a move toward free market policies.

So, how could a move toward greater freedom discourage people from choosing ‘the good life’? The authors’ explanation seems to have two components.

First, they argue that a free market economy gives employers power to make employees work longer hours. That doesn’t make sense to me. If large numbers of workers wanted to work shorter hours, surely it would be in the interests of employers to find ways to accommodate their desires. Over the last 40 years, it seems to me that working hours have actually become more flexible, with a move toward casual employment and greater willingness of many employers to allow workers to take time off to meet family obligations.

Second, the authors claim that capitalism rests on an endless expansion of wants: ‘It has taken away the consciousness of having enough’. The authors see advertising as the major culprit:

‘Advertising may not create insatiability, but it exploits it without scruple, whispering in our ear that our lives are drab and second-rate unless we consume “more”.’

This seems to me to be another weak point in the story. Advertisers didn’t suddenly begin to whisper in our ears with the move toward freer markets in the 1980s. They were whispering in our ears during the 1950s and 60s, when working hours were declining. And it is possible for people to cope with the whispering and to decide for themselves how much is enough. A lot of people choose non-materialistic lifestyles. Many of those who choose to work long hours and/or multiple jobs do so in order to enjoy a more relaxed lifestyle at a later stage of their lives.

I disagree profoundly with the central argument of this book that governments should construct incentives and disincentives to guide people to adopt that particular perception of the good life. Nevertheless, I enjoyed reading ‘How Much is Enough?’ I agree with much of the discussion of the concept of happiness and strongly support the view presented there that a happy life is more than just a string of agreeable mental states. I admired the way the authors developed the idea that we should consider harmony with nature as part of the good life for humans.

In a personal sense, I find myself substantially in agreement with the authors’ vision of the good life. If they had confined themselves to sermonizing I would be cheering instead of jeering.

Are we better off when we have charismatic leaders?

Before I began reading ‘The Charisma Myth’, by Olivia Fox Cabane, I would have said that we are probably better off with non-charismatic political leaders. I would have argued that while non-charismatic political leaders tend to inspire no more confidence than is appropriate, some end up performing surprisingly well. By contrast, charismatic political leaders often seem to generate expectations that cannot be met.

However, by the time I was about half way through ‘The Charisma Myth’ I was thinking that the world might be a better place if there were a lot more charismatic people. Olivia demystifies charisma by suggesting that it consists of three behaviours – presence, warmth and power. Presence is about being fully present when you are in a conversation with another person. Warmth is about being benevolent, altruistic, caring etc. Power is about being perceived as able to affect the world around you. It seems like a good idea for everyone to show interest in what others are saying, to have good feelings toward other people and to show through their posture that they know that they have a right to occupy space.

Soon after that, however, I began to wonder whether it was the kind of book I should be reading. I think it was the bit about imagining yourself to be a big gorilla, taking up a lot of space, that got me wondering. The gorilla exercise might be good advice for people who have doubts about their right to occupy space, but it reminded me of the objectionable behaviour of someone I once met who held a powerful position which entitled him to sit at the head of a board room table. Instead of sitting in that position, this person sat at the side of the table, spreading his papers to occupy the space of about three normal people and leaving less space for everyone else. At the time I thought he was just doing it to display his power, but I now wonder whether it was something he learned to do at a leadership training course.

It was probably the catchy title that motivated me to read this book. I was interested in discovering the secret of charisma. But I must admit that once I started reading I decided to do some of the exercises in the book to see if I could develop some charisma. (It might take a lot of practice!)

I suspect that most of the people reading the book will be looking for more effective ways to win friends and influence people. That is not a problem, but the sub-title, ‘How anyone can master the art and science of personal magnetism’, might attract people who seek personal advantage at the expense of other people.  

In his recent comments on the book, former blogger Arnold King, wrote:

‘The self-help book I wish people would read is "How to recognize when you are being seduced by charisma and dial down your response." I think that a reader can find some of that information in this book, although it is not presented with that purpose in mind’.

We know that an attempt is being made to manipulate us when we detect pretence and insincerity. Olivia suggests that most people find it easy to perceive when others are being inauthentic because it shows up in their body language. Even if people read the book for ulterior motives, there is a fair chance that if they do the exercises they will tend to change their perceptions and behaviour in ways that would make them show genuine presence and warmth. Hopefully this would mean that they are less likely to knowingly exploit the vulnerabilities of others. But it would still leave potential for charismatic leaders who believe their own hype to lead their followers astray.

How can we tell when a charismatic leader is claiming to do things that he/she is not capable of doing? Imagine a political leader who obviously has massive confidence in his/her own abilities. This person makes it obvious from what he/she says that he/she listens to what ordinary people have to say. He/she shows great personal warmth and presents a vision of how life could be better for everyone.

Are there any warning signals to look for that might suggest whether such a leader is likely to end up disappointing his/her followers? In my view, an ambitious vision presented by a leader who shows no hint of doubt about his/her ability to achieve the desired outcomes should be enough to set alarm bells ringing loudly.

The problem is that a lot of people don’t want to hear the alarm bells. The expectations gap (that I write about in Chapter 8 and 9 of the book I am writing) is as much the result of voters wanting to be led to fantasy land as of political leaders promising to take them there. Nevertheless, a leader can generate support by admitting that he/she has ‘nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat’, when it becomes obvious that unpleasant truths must be faced.

So, after reading the book, do I think we are better off with charismatic leaders? Presence and warmth are obviously good qualities for everyone to have, including political leaders. As for power, I think it can be positive or negative depending on its source. Leaders who display unlimited faith in their ability to accomplish miracles will almost invariably disappoint everyone, including their followers. Charisma is a plus when the power component comes from intellect and/or values that might help the leader to do the job. 

Is there a close relationship between subjective and objective indicators of environmental protection?

The subjective indicator of environmental protection that I have in mind is data from the Gallup World Poll on the percentage of respondents who say they are satisfied with efforts to preserve the natural environment. I have used this as one of several indicators of opportunity for individual human flourishing in a draft of Chapter 6 of ‘Free to Flourish’, the book I have been writing.

The objective indicator of environmental protection that I have in mind is the Environmental Performance Index (EPI) which is the result of a major collaborative project of research agencies associated with Yale and Colombia universities. The EPI is calculated on the basis of 22 performance indicators reflecting facets of environmental public health and ecosystem vitality.

   

The relationship between the two indexes is shown in Figure 1 below.

In broad terms, the relationship is positive, but not close. The people in some countries (e.g. Kuwait, United Arab Emirates and Singapore) seem to be much more satisfied with efforts to protect the environment than would be predicted on the basis of objective indicators. By contrast, the people in some other countries (e.g. Mongolia, Bulgaria and Italy) seem to be much less satisfied with efforts to protect the environment than would be predicted on that basis.

Some light is shed on what seems to be happening by a regression analysis which seeks to explain satisfaction with efforts to protect the environment in terms of government effectiveness (using the relevant indicator in the World Bank’s suite of governance indicators) and the EPI. The analysis suggests that the governance variable is much more important than the EPI in explaining satisfaction with efforts to protect the environment. This is shown graphically in Figure 2, which plots the satisfaction variable against government effectiveness. The points shown as blue squares are the predicted values for each country based on the multiple regression (including both of the explanatory variables). The values barely diverge from the black line in which the government effectiveness variable is the only explanatory variable. 

My conclusion is that satisfaction with efforts to protect the environment is more a measure of satisfaction with governance than a measure of environmental protection. On this basis it would probably be preferable to use the EPI as an indicator of the impact that environmental factors are likely to have on opportunities for individual human flourishing.I am using the EPI in the latest draft of Chapter 6 of 'Free to Flourish'.

What fantasies are associated with the modern pursuit of happiness?

A draft of the final chapter of ‘Free to Flourish’, the book I am writing, has just been uploaded to the book’s web site.

My aim in this chapter has been to draw together the threads from earlier chapters by identifying fantasies related to the issues discussed.

My list of fantasies:

• Happiness is just about experiences.
• Paternalistic governments can help us flourish.
• Restrictions on freedom help people to flourish.
• Governments should be seeking to maximize collective happiness.
• No society is better than any other.
• Progress is history.
• Democratic governments can’t fail.

It is tempting to try to summarize why I think the listed points are fantaasies, but anyone who is interested can easily follow this link and take a look at the draft of ‘Chapter 9: The Choice – Fantasy or Opportunity’.

How addictive is blogging?

I might be about to find out.

The time has come for me to take a short break from blogging while I finish the first draft of the book I am writing.

Postscript 1:
I would like to thank kvd for his comments, below, which have led me to attempt to articulate more clearly the main message in the book.

As I have been writing the book my perception of threats to human flourishing has changed somewhat. When I began, I thought that the main point I would be making would be that in order to be fully flourishing individual humans need to have control of their own lives. In other words, if governments relieve us of the need to exercise our powers of self-direction, then our skills in running our own lives can be expected to dissipate, resulting in character development failures. That is still an important message, but I think the more urgent message to convey is that when people come to expect governments to take the obstacles out of the obstacle course of life then they are likely to end up disappointed (i.e. unhappy). The gap that has emerged between what democratic governments are expected to deliver and what they can actually deliver cannot go on increasing indefinitely. An adjustment to reality must occur sooner or later. The larger the gap, the more painful the adjustment is likely to be. (That sounds a bit polemical, but I am writing a polemic!)

Postscript 2:

One week later, I can now answer the question posed above – in case anyone thought it might be a serious question.

I’m not addicted to blogging. It is no more addictive than any other hobby might be. The rewards are entirely intrinsic. I am not blogging in order to achieve fame or fortune (just as well!) but for the satisfaction in thinking my way through issues, writing about them and engaging in discussion with other people.

As someone once told me, we always have enough time to do the things that are most important to us. Blogging is fairly important to me, but ‘other things’ sometimes have priority. It seems likely that over the next few months ‘other things’ will often be more important to me than blogging, so I do not expect to be blogging as regularly as in the past.

Is it a fantasy that a happy life is all about pleasant experiences?

It seems to me that the view that a happy life is just about pleasant experiences is a fantasy. I’m not saying that it is not desirable to have a life full of pleasant experiences, just that a happy life involves more than that.

In his famous thought experiment, Robert Nozick asked readers to imagine an experience machine that would give them any experience they desired. They would be able to select experiences from a large library and the machine would be pre-programmed to give them those experiences while they spent the rest of their lives floating in a tank (‘Anarchy, State and Utopia’, 1971, pp 42-44).

Would you choose to spend the rest of your life hooked up to such a machine?

Nozick suggests that we learn that something matters to us other than experiences by imagining the experience machine and then realizing that we would not use it. He suggests three reasons why you probably wouldn’t use it. You want to do things, not just have the experience of doing them. You would not want to be a person floating in a tank – that is not consistent with how you see yourself. And the machine would limit you to man-made reality – ‘to a world no deeper or more important than that which people can construct’.

It might be reasonable to argue that people plugged into the experience machine would be happy – in the sense that their overall emotional condition would be positive. They might have peace of mind, confidence, inner freedom, and feelings of vitality, flow, joy and cheerfulness (to use terms in Dan Haybron’s definition of happiness, discussed on this blog some time ago). I see some merit in that definition of happiness, but it isn’t the definition of happiness that I have in mind when I assert that it is a fantasy that a happy life is all about experiences.

What I have in mind when I refer to a ‘happy life’ is ‘human flourishing’. I don’t have a huge problem with the idea that positive feelings are all about experiences. (Perhaps it might be better to talk in terms of perceptions of experiences - the meaning we attach to experiences must also come into the equation.) But I don’t see how anyone could argue that human flourishing is all about experiences. It seems obvious that a person who spent a life-time hooked up to an experience machine would not be flourishing.

What about motivation? Are those who define happiness as a positive emotional condition able to claim that happiness is the only motivator of human behaviour? One person who seems close to holding that position is the psychologist, Dan Gilbert. He certainly adopts the definition of happiness as a positive feeling and almost claims that it is the only motivator:

‘Everyone who has observed human behaviour for more than thirty continuous seconds seems to have noticed that people are strongly, perhaps even primarily, perhaps even single-mindedly, motivated to feel happy’ (‘Stumbling on Happiness’, 2006, p 36).

As an economist, I don’t have any difficulty in accepting that just about all human action is motivated by desires of some kind. But if people are strongly motivated by a desire to experience positive feelings, would they not view a life hooked up to the hypothetical experience machine - where positive feelings can be guaranteed - as desirable? Martin Seligman, the founder of positive psychology, says that most of the people to whom he has offered the hypothetical choice refuse it. His explanation: 

‘It is not just positive feelings we want, we want to be entitled to our positive feelings’ (‘Authentic Happiness’, 2002, p 8).

The main power of the experience machine metaphor seems to come from the life-time commitment involved. The nature of humans is such that few of us would view a life-time of virtual reality as a meaningful life.

However, it seems to me that the thought experiment can also help to clarify some issues if we relax the condition of life-time connection. The practical question can be raised of how much time we might be prepared to spend hooked up to a virtual reality machine as a form of entertainment. As virtual experiences become less easy to distinguish from real experiences, people may be tempted to spend more time enjoying virtual reality at the expense of other forms of entertainment, or even work. While many of us would see an hour or two of virtual reality now and then as harmless escapism, we would probably want to draw a line somewhere to ensure that we live meaningful lives. The issues involved are similar to those many of us have had to deal with in learning how to switch off the TV.

My point is that when we make such choices we take into account factors other than the positive feelings generated by different experiences. It is natural for us to think also about the objectives we have for our lives – the kinds of persons we want to become - and the extent to which different experiences might contribute to those goals.

Some people could suggest that it doesn’t make much difference in practice whether or not people believe the fantasy that a happy life is all about pleasant experiences. I think it might matter a great deal. For example, people who believe that fantasy might give less thought to what they could do to make their own lives meaningful. They might also be more inclined to neglect to help their children to develop the skills in self-direction that they need to have happy lives. 

Does actualization of potential take us beyond self-direction?

The main point I am making in the second chapter of the book I am writing is that the purpose of our lives is to flourish – to actualize our potential as individual humans - and that what flourishing means is ultimately a matter for each of us to discover for ourselves. As I see it, the reason we have to discover it for ourselves is that flourishing involves, among other things, developing skills in self-direction.

A correspondent has suggested to me that this formulation is excessively focused on individuals and does not recognize that individuals cannot flourish unless they see themselves as part of a community and are able to live harmoniously within it. My correspondent suggested that individual flourishing means transcending self-direction. She referred to Martin Seligman’s idea that living a meaningful life involves ‘belonging to and serving something bigger than the self’ (‘Flourish’, p 17). She also mentioned Jonathan Haidt’s view that we (human beings) are ‘conditional hive creatures’ with ‘the ability (under special circumstances) to transcend self-interest and lose ourselves (temporarily and ecstatically) in something larger than ourselves’ (‘The Righteous Mind’, p 244).

As it happens, I am a Seligman fan. I particularly like the final paragraph of ‘Authentic Happiness’:  

‘The good life consists of deriving happiness by using your signature strengths every day in the main realms of living. The meaningful life adds one more component, using these same strengths to forward knowledge, power, or goodness’ (p.260).

In the preceding paragraph, Seligman argues strongly that we get to choose the kinds of lives we live. His views are clearly consistent with self-direction. We might choose to serve goodness, for example, but we have to work out what this might mean in practical terms before we can do it.

I am also a Haidt fan. I accept that humans have evolved with a tendency to be groupish. As Haidt puts it:  

‘Hiving comes naturally, easily and joyfully to us. Its normal function is to bond dozens or at most hundreds of people together into communities of trust, cooperation, and even love’ (p 242).

I agree with Haidt that ‘a nation that is full of hives is a nation of happy and satisfied people’ and not a ‘promising target for takeover by a demagogue’. He is endorsing civil society. 

Jon Haidt's metaphor of the rider and the elephant, discussed in Chapter 3 of my book, suggest humans have some capacity for self-direction. Nevertheless, groupishness does appear to be somewhat in conflict with self-direction. If we obtain happiness and satisfaction from groups, does that not mean that we are surrendering autonomy?

At this point economics comes to the rescue – in the form of ‘identity economics’ - to provide a framework to consider whether groupishness trumps self-direction. The key idea of 'Identity Economics' - a book by George Akerlof and Rachel Kranton - is that people gain satisfaction when their actions conform to the norms and ideals of their identity, which is determined to a large extent by the groups to which they belong. (I have written about identity economics previously on this blog - here, for example.)

In the final chapter of their book Akerlof and Kranton have a brief discussion of choice of identity. The discussion covers the role of identity considerations in choices made by women to pursue careers, choices made by parents of whether to send children to private schools, and the choices of immigrants to integrate into their new countries.

It seems to me that the extent to which we are able to realize our potential depends to a large extent on the choices we make about the groups we belong to – choice of friends, further education, work, social groups, religious groups and so forth. We can choose to lose ourselves, waste ourselves, find ourselves, or whatever, in a range of different ways by bonding to different groups. The groups we join help determine our identities and our identities influence our future choices.

One of the wonderful things about modern society is that it provides ordinary people with a wide range of choice of groups to join, or not join, as they choose. We get to use our powers of self-direction to choose our identities by deciding which groups to join, or leave. I accept that actualization of potential requires us to transcend self-interest (as the term is normally understood) but, it seems to me, that it also requires ongoing development of skills in self-direction.

Could a powerful interest group form around the ideals of social cooperation?

Social cooperation is the means by which each of us can pursue our own ends to the greatest extent possible by engaging voluntarily in mutually beneficial activities with others. It requires respect for the rights of other people. (For a more complete explanation, see: Henry Hazlitt, ‘The Foundations of Morality’.)

 

One way to open up the question of whether a powerful interest group could form around the ideals of social cooperation is to think about the way people consider public policy issues in democracies. Different people are clearly motivated by a wide range of different considerations when they engage in discussion of public policy issues. Their motives are often not widely shared in the broader community. For example people are often motivated by self-interest (impacts on income, wealth, educational opportunities for children, availability of health services etc.) or by other special interests (religious beliefs, environmental concerns, helping the needy, prevention of animal cruelty, gay rights etc.). When their motives are not widely shared, individuals have an incentive to downplay them and to use arguments that might be persuasive to the public at large when presenting their views in public debate. For example, a person who wanted to argue for more help to the needy might put the argument that this is a desirable form of social insurance for everyone – that for the most part those in need are like everyone else except for the misfortunes in their lives.

Even though people come to the public discussion of issues with a wide range of different personal interests, the discussion tends to centre on social consequences i.e. the question of whether policy options are consistent with the kind of society they want to live in. The issue of social cooperation is viewed by all participants as being of fundamental importance – options are taken off the table if they are not consistent with respect for the rights of all citizens. There are differences of view about the weight that should be placed on different objectives, such as making opportunities more equal or providing greater economic security, but there is widespread acknowledgement of the validity of such objectives. Discussions about the appropriate means that should be used to pursue objectives are informed by expert advice. As a result of the public debate, opinion tends to coalesce around particular options and governments proceed to implement those options.

Yeah, right! You have probably realized that in the preceding paragraph I outlined how I think the political system should work, rather than how it actually works. For example, I have disregarded the obvious point that a large part of the contributions of interest groups to public discussion are aimed at marshalling the people they purport to represent in order to signal to political parties that their votes are at stake. The leaders of some interest groups might even see advantages in promoting a divisive debate to get the people they represent to identify more strongly with that group and less strongly with the interests of the broader community.

In casting their votes, citizens are often faced with a choice between identifying with a particular interest group or voting on the basis of broader considerations about policies that are most likely to promote the common good. If they are cynical about the democratic process and have come to view it as a power struggle between interest groups they are more likely to identify with a particular interest group. If an increasing proportion of citizens think that way and engage in the competitive struggle to obtain benefits at the expense of others, the benefits of social cooperation will tend to be increasingly overlooked, to the detriment of the wider community.

In order to consider whether a powerful interest group could form around the ideals of social cooperation we should look first at Mancur Olson’s theory of collective action. Olson suggests that the relative power of different interest groups can be explained in terms of their access to selective incentives. Selective incentives enable interest groups to provide rewards or punishments in order to encourage individuals to contribute to their collective efforts. For example, they may be in a position to provide services to members including opportunities for social interaction, or to threaten punishments such as ostracism or even violence (in some trade unions, for example). Encompassing groups, such as consumers and taxpayers, do not have as much access to selective incentives and hence tend to be less powerful than narrow interest groups.  (See: Mancur Olson, ‘The Rise and Decline of Nations’, 1982, chapter 2.)

Jonathan Haidt’s moral foundations theory (explained in ‘The Righteous Mind: Why good people are divided by politics and religion’, 2012) sheds further light on the relative power of different interest groups. As explained in an earlier post, the basic idea is that the virtues that are found in many cultures are related to adaptive challenges of social life that have been identified by evolutionary psychologists. While moral foundations are innate, they are expressed in differing ways and to differing extents in different cultures. Political parties and interest groups that are seeking your support strive to make their concerns trigger at least one of your moral foundations so that you will see yourself as belonging to their tribe.

Haidt identifies six moral foundations: care/harm; fairness/cheating; loyalty/betrayal; authority/subversion; liberty/oppression; and sanctity/degradation.  It seems to me that all of these foundations are often used by narrow interest groups in ways that are detrimental to social cooperation. The groups can appeal to your instincts to care for other people in your industry, occupation, community, religion etc., to seek retribution if you feel that you have been cheated, to maintain loyalty to the group, to respect group leaders, to overcome the oppression that the group is suffering as a result of ‘a corrupt system’, and to feel disgust at the ‘degrading’ behaviour of those who oppose the group’s interests.

However, if an interest group is able to trigger moral foundations, this suggests that it could be powerful even if it doesn’t have strong selective incentives available to it.

So, does moral foundations theory suggest that it might be possible for powerful interest groups to form around the concept of social cooperation? Social cooperation seems to me to involve all six moral foundations. The ideal of non-coercion - living in peace on the basis of respect for the rights of others - is clearly related to the care/harm module. The ideal of voluntary cooperation for mutual benefit involves reciprocity and trust, and is closely related to the fairness/cheating module. When people in western societies engage in acts that conflict with the ideals of social cooperation they are betraying the heritage that enables them to live in peace, with widespread opportunity and a degree of economic security beyond the dreams of their ancestors. The ideals of social cooperation are consistent with recognition of the authority of the leaders of organizations that individuals are free to join or leave. Social cooperation is all about liberty. In respecting the rights of others we can take comfort from knowing that we are respecting the sanctity of the golden rule to treat others as we would like to be treated ourselves.

   

In addition, the ideals of social cooperation seem to me to be supported by what Steven Pinker refers to (in ‘The Better Angels of Our Nature’, 2011) as ‘the escalator of reason’. He argues that the escalator of reason has provided a basis for taking intuitive moral foundations to a higher level as education levels have risen and skills in abstract reasoning have improved. As previously discussed on this blog, the escalator of reason involves ascending to the vantage point of an impartial spectator (i.e. detaching oneself from a parochial viewpoint). Pinker argues that a value system in which human flourishing is the ultimate good can be mutually agreed upon by any community of thinkers who value their own interests and are engaged in reasoned negotiation.

Despite all the above, some might argue that a powerful interest group could not form around the ideals of social cooperation because, like motherhood, it is commonly viewed as so obviously desirable that there does not seem to be any need to campaign for it. If we look back in history, however, we owe the benefits of social cooperation we now tend to take for granted to the activities of interest groups a few centuries ago (see this post for elaboration). When the basis for social cooperation is seen to be coming under threat, strong countervailing interest groups could be expected to form in order to defend it. 

Postscript: 
For elaboration of these views, please see my book Free to Flourish.