Anti-Wage-Slavery, Pro-Freedom Quotations 181-182

It might be a bit of a political challenge to define happiness as a legitimate policy objective. Imagine the Republican outrage when the umpteenth tax cut didn’t do the trick. Democrats would likely slam the effort as regressive, distracting from efforts to improve the lot of the less fortunate by more conventional measures — like income.
…A notorious study in 1974 found that despite some 30 years worth of stellar economic growth, Americans were no happier than they were at the end of World War II. A more recent study found that life satisfaction in China declined between 1994 and 2007, a period in which average real incomes grew by 250 percent.…More broadly, if the object of public policy is to maximize society’s well-being, more attention should be placed on fostering social interactions and less on accumulating wealth. If growing incomes are not increasing happiness, perhaps we should tax incomes more to force us to devote less time and energy to the endeavor and focus instead on the more satisfying pursuit of leisure.

All They Are Saying Is Give Happiness a Chance

By EDUARDO PORTER

New York Times

Published: November 12, 2007

Every increase in joy a society can provide for will do more for the ethical education of its members than all the warnings of punishment or preachings of virtue could do.
Erich Fromm