Apparently in conjunction with Robert J. Samuelson’s thoughtful Sunday column, The global happiness derby, the Washington Post is running a poll today asking readers if they believe happiness should be the goal of government:

Even a significant major it of that paper’s readers (who would, I dare say, skew left along with its editorial direction) don’t believe governments should make our happiness their goal.

Now, to be sure, our Declaration of Independence defines the pursuit of happiness as a right; Mr. Jefferson thus did not define the right as happiness, but its pursuit, an important distinction.  It seems almost that it then becomes an aspect of another right, liberty — that governments should leave us free to pursue happiness.

Although, as Samuelson notes, some social scientists believe governments can promote happiness, the means of achieving that state of mind cannot be reduced to a crude formula.

Better he argues to ”leave ‘happiness’ to novelists and philosophers — and rescue it from the economists and psychologists who think it can be distilled into a ‘science’ and translated into pro-happiness policies”:

Creating an impossible goal — universal happiness — also condemns government to failure. Happiness depends on too much that is uncontrollable. For starters, personality. We all know people who seem blessed — stable marriage, healthy children, successful job — who are restless, grumpy and sometimes depressed. Meanwhile, others plagued by misfortune — sickness, shaky finances, family disappointment — persevere and remain upbeat.

Contradictions abound. Freedom, the ability to choose, is also essential to well-being, says the happiness report. But freedom permits people to do self-destructive things that reduce happiness.

And freedom also allows people to mend their ways and improve their state of mind. (more…)

When, right after college, I lived in Europe, I noted was that the continentals were far more class conscious than their American peers. Unlike most of us New World natives, they pretty much saw the social structure as set in stone.  Perhaps, it is this lack of fluidity that caused so much resentment among the lower classes for their wealthier fellow citizens.  

Here, in America, many in the MSM seem to make much of income inequality, trumpeting statistics which show a rising gap between the rich and the poor.  Yet, most Americans just don’t get upset about that gap.  In his latest column, Michael Barone asks us to consider this “conundrum in American politics“:

Income inequality has been increasing, according to standard statistics. Yet most Americans do not seem very perturbed by it. . . .

It’s a widespread assumption in some affluent circles that ordinary Americans are seething with envy because they can’t afford to shop regularly at Neiman Marcus or Saks Fifth Avenue. My sense is that most Americans just don’t care. They’re reasonably happy with what they’ve got, and would like a little more.

It’s Barone, read the whole thing.  He make an important observation about American culture.  The best efforts of many liberals notwithstanding, most Americans don’t seethe with resentment for those more financially well-off than they.

Perhaps, it’s that we know, most of us at least, that greater financial success doesn’t necessarily mean greater personal fulfillment.  We believe those things can be found in our families, our communities and our passions.