Should Governments be responsible for raising happiness levels?

[Stu]

Hahah, that is a great sentence Brutha.

Schola you're being far too specific. No one in here is saying that governments should do things like force everyone to paint their cars a happy color. It seems obvious to me that whatever small benefit to the overall happiness that would have (if car color has any at all) would be far overshadowed by the anger people would feel over being forced to paint their car a certain color.

I think this quote from the link I posted in my last post sums up what I think quite nicely:

"I don't believe governments can make people happy, but I do believe governments can remove institutions which make it difficult for people to pursue happiness," he says.

No one's talking about forcing you to live in a 'maximized happiness' way. But if there are policies or institutions that are actively getting in the way of letting people be happy why not remove them, or change them so that they're not in the way anymore. It's not like this is something revolutionary, it's right there in the declaration after all, "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". The only thing that's changed is that we understand what makes us happy a lot better than we did back then.

[schola]

We've gotten off track. The title of your thread is: Should Governments be responsible for raising happiness levels?

Is that your question or not? Or would you rather rephrase it?

What I am saying is, on principle, that is dangerous to give that responsibility to government; whether explicit or implicit, formal or informal.

Here is all you need to know about government and happiness:
The smaller the government, the happier the people.

You do not need research, or tests, or contrived political catch-phrases like "gross well-being" to know this.

So based on that, the answer to your question is no, government shouldn't be responsible for increasing happiness, since government directly causes less happiness. How can you make someone responsible for increasing something that their mere presence causes less of?

That would be like putting Lucifer in charge of the Heaven Admissions Office.

Most of the disastrous welfare programs instituted in the 20th century were created for exactly that purpose: increasing happiness, fairness, whatever.

It's not that hard to determine what government institutions to get rid of either. If you want to know what specific government functions to cut back on, or departments to abolish, a good place to start would be, "All of them."

If you want specifics on what to keep, you should check out the U.S. Constitution. They were pretty much right on.

[Stu]

I admit the original question is poorly worded. Perhaps "How can government help raise general happiness levels?"

How can you know that less government makes people happier without the research and the tests and even the contrived political catch-phrases? Wouldnt that make it just your personal opinion?

And wouldn't the smallest government of all be no government? Or do you believe there is a point where government can be too small?

[schola]

Originally Posted by Stu

How can you know that less government makes people happier without the research and the tests and even the contrived political catch-phrases? Wouldnt that make it just your personal opinion?

Any interpretation of scientific data is opinion. As soon as you go from hard data to determining what the data means, you enter the realm of opinion. Two scientists can look at the same data and come to different conclusions. Happens all the time.

I base my opinion on the philosphy of individualism, libertarianism, the ideas of Ludwig von Mises, and Thomas Jefferson among others.

[Gabo]

Government uses force to compel obedience.
Things like happiness and love cannot be achieved through coercion.

Whatever benefit a small group might gain from a government policy, the rest of the population pays for. Trying to force someone to better themselves achieves nothing.

[Stu]

I've already explained this 2 or 3 times now, but I don't think anyone in here is advocating forced happiness.

I really don't understand why there is so much opposition to this though, would you rather have policies that make you less happy and more depressed?

I mean it's not like various policies are having no effect. They're either positively effecting your subjective well-being or negatively effecting your subjective well-being. Maybe not in big, noticable ways, but it's impossible for them to have absolutely zero effect.

So if you actively oppose any attempt to positively effect subjective well-being then you are necessarily embracing policies that would negatively impact subjective well-being.