Happiness

A reporter on NPR today noted that the object of the things government does is to make people happy.

While I can’t refute that many politicians and bureaucrats might claim this is the case, I don’t believe that is, nor should it be, the case.

The purpose of government is not to make us happy. The purpose is to make us safer, and to do things that we could not effectively accomplish as individuals. The actual reason governments do things is almost always to help a politician get re-elected or to allow them to do something that will make THEM happy. Of course, it probably helps your chances of re-election if your constituents are happy, but big campaign contributions help more.

There’s a quote attributed to Henry Ford, along the lines of “if I had asked people what they wanted, they would have told me they wanted faster horses.” The goal of government should not be to give people what they WANT. It should be to give them what they NEED – even if they don’t know they need it. What the people, inevitably, WANT is bread and circuses – for free, of course. What they need are standard weights and measures, clean water, armed forces, etc. Sure, if you ask people “do you want those” they’ll usually say yes – but if you just ask them what they want they’re unlikely to make the top ten.

Yet another quote is often told as a joke about a French political activist who sees a crowd running by. He runs after them, saying “I must see where My People are going so that I can lead them!” This is, in fact, a good way to get elected. It is NOT leadership. It is NOT what governments should do. What a leader would do is say “I know that you’re running this way, but here’s why you really want to run the other way instead.” A successful leader gets the crowd to go in a direction they weren’t already going. This seldom makes people happy in the short term, and in the long term they usually forget that someone else got them going in a better direction. So it has nothing to do with happiness.

What is good for us often doesn’t make us happy. Taking nasty-tasting medicine doesn’t make you happy – but it makes you healthy. Getting your vaccinations doesn’t make you happy. Eating healthy food doesn’t make you happy. You only get happier about these things if you can connect them with their long term benefits. In government, the long-term benefits ought to be the primary objective; make the investments that private industry won’t make because they won’t pay off fast enough. Maintain the military in peacetime so that it is ready to win when war comes. Build GOOD roads that will last and require less maintenance in the long run. People waiting months while a new 100-year bridge is built would be happier if a 10 year bridge was slapped together. At least for one election cycle.

I think this is part of the key problem with our country as it is today – we confuse the way things are with the way we want them and the way they should be.