The Point of Happiness

Well, okay, not exactly the point of happiness; that's a slightly grandiose title for dramatic effect. But I am going to talk about the point of something different, namely David Cameron's idea of creating a happiness index to measure the well-being of Britons. This is kind of a signature proposal of his, one he came up with in 2005 and is now implementing as Prime Minister. It's one of the things that makes me like him considerably better than I would like an average Conservative PM. Here's why.
The first thing to say about a "happiness index" is that no, you can't actually make a very good objective measurement of aggregate happiness, the way you can make a rather decent objective measurement of aggregate economic production. I'm tempted to just plain predict that the idea of creating a single number that will be the Happiness Index and that will be supposed to tell us useful information is not going to work out. Apparently there's something called Gross National Happiness, but a perusal of its Wikipedia page makes me think that it is defined in all sorts of ways that incorporate Buddhist ideology about what "happiness" means. Not that I necessarily disagree with those ideologies, mind you, just that an index that you're going to try to make policy off of ought to be as neutral in its definition as possible so that when it agrees with you you get to be justifiably happy about it. But any attempt to make an objective index of happiness runs into serious problems, like the fact that all psychologists know the worst way to tell if someone is happy is to ask them if they are happy. This being the case, any attempt to "measure" happiness will ultimately mean measuring a bunch of other things that are believed to be proxies for happiness, but that necessarily involves deciding what exactly creates happiness. And that is, after all, what the entire point of having the index ought to be.

But I still think it's an incredibly valuable thing to have happen, and it's even more valuable coming from the mouth of the Conservative leader. That's because, while it is essentially impossible to measure aggregate subjective wellbeing, it is much more possible to decide which of two alternative policy proposals will be better for aggregate subjective wellbeing. So for me, the point of having David Cameron talk about a happiness index is not to create the index, but to remind people that the purpose of the economy, and the purpose of public policy, is not to maximize economic production, but rather to maximize aggregate subjective happiness. Which means, necessarily, that there might be an instance when the government must choose between two policies, one of which will be better for aggregate economic production and the other of which will be better for aggregate happiness, and it should choose the second one. A reduction in GDP that results from the same policy that increases happiness is totally worth it. Otherwise, the economy doesn't serve humanity, humanity serves the economy. And the fact that the point of all of economics and public policy is actually providing subjective well-being for people is one that is either controversial or considered sort of embarrassing to bring up, like talking about something as mushy as happiness makes you a softy, or just a bleeding-heart commie liberal. That's why I think it's so important that he is a Tory, because he can say it without the Conservatives tearing into him for being a hippie.

So bravo, David Cameron. No, your happiness index will probably never take concrete form in a particularly satisfying way. But by bringing happiness into the realm of legitimate public discourse, you just might help people remember what government is all about.

Now, the rest of your policies aren't that great for aggregate happiness, but that's a story for another blog post...