The Founding Fathers enshrined the pursuit of happiness at the heart of America's national credo, but happiness tends to get discounted in the public policy shuffle in favor of other priorities. Arthur C. Brooks's new book, Gross National Happiness: Why Happiness Matters for America--and How We Can Get More of It (Basic Books, April 2008), attempts to remedy this. Brooks reviews extensive survey data to understand the contours of how happy individual Americans are--and how individual happiness translates into nationwide satisfaction.
Brooks finds that conservatives are twice as likely to call themselves "very happy" than liberals. Those with extreme political beliefs, right or left, tend to be happier than moderates--although their provocations lower happiness for the rest of society. Devout people of all religions are much happier than secularists. Parents are happier than the childless, even though their children often give them fits. But child-rearing offers "meaning" to life, a sort of deep happiness that Aristotle called eudaimonia. Balancing freedom and order also brings optimal happiness, because "too many moral choices leave us insecure and searching, unable to distinguish right from wrong, and thus miserable."
Understanding the dynamics of happiness, Brooks shows how we can become happier. Opportunity breeds happiness, and "efforts to diminish economic inequality--without
creating economic opportunity--will actually lower America's gross national happiness, not raise it." Opportunity allows for good jobs, and "job satisfaction actually increases life happiness." To the extent that happiness can be bought, it is with charity: giving--of effort, time, and money--makes people much happier, and it correlates with many other characteristics of the happy. Brooks writes that the government does a poor job of making us happy but that "the government can help us pursue happiness." It is in pursuit that we measure our gross national happiness.
For more information about this book, visit www.aei.org/book926/. For an upcoming forum for this book, visit www.aei.org/event1709/.
