Beware the Happy Police!

An article on happiness in the NY Times with some very disturbing and unwarranted conclusions:

Despite happiness’ apparently Sisyphean nature, there may be ways to increase satisfaction over the long term. While the extra happiness derived from a raise or a winning lottery ticket might be fleeting, studies have found that the happiness people derive from free time or social interaction is less susceptible to comparisons with other people around them. Nonmonetary rewards — like more vacations, or more time with friends or family — are likely to produce more lasting changes in satisfaction.

This swings the door wide open for government intervention.

YIKES!!! Says who? The idea that drives this notion is that we aren't good at deciding the things that truly bring us happiness. So far, so good. The problem becomes when assuming that people who can't choose the right things to make themselves happy can magically have the power to choose the right things that make you happy.

On a small scale, congestion taxes to encourage people to carpool would reduce the distress of the solo morning commute, which apparently drives people nuts.

So does coordinating your schedule with someone else's to carpool. What happens if you get out of work early and they don't or you have to work late and they don't? If carpooling brought was so beneficial, wouldn't people already be doing more of it? What if you're meeting your family for dinner or just want to get home to spend time with them after a long day of work without having to drive an extra 15-minutes to drop off your fellow commuter? Twice a day, that's an extra 30-minutes added to your commute not counting lost time from differences in schedules. Sharing a commute has its own share of frustrating costs. If spending time with family brings greater happiness, it may be worth it not to carpool.

More broadly, if the object of public policy is to maximize society’s well-being, more attention should be placed on fostering social interactions and less on accumulating wealth. If growing incomes are not increasing happiness, perhaps we should tax incomes more to force us to devote less time and energy to the endeavor and focus instead on the more satisfying pursuit of leisure.

Aren't these personal choices? Doesn't happiness research also indicate that doing things voluntarily rather than involuntarily leads to greater satisfaction? If you force people through policy to behave in a certain way, don't you risk destroying the happiness you claim to want to increase?

One thing seems certain, lining up every policy incentive to strive for higher and higher incomes is just going to make us all miserable. Happiness is one of the things that money just can’t buy.

True, but my guess is that it's also one thing policy can't make either. I know a lot of people who are unhappy about happiness research because they fear it will lead to policies designed to increase happiness. I think it's intellectually problematic to dismiss happiness research for these reasons. It's like saying I don't like the conclusion therefore it must be false.

I am a big fan of happiness research myself. If there's something I can learn that will make me more happy, why would I not want to know it? Rather than dismissing it out of hand, I think it is important to develop well-reasoned arguments for why happiness policy is a bad idea and will likely lead to greater unhappiness overall.