i am happier, damn it.

prompted by will’s post (ages ago, in blogtime- but hey, i've been in the dark for a while!) and those requisite Christmastime political arguments, i must agree that libertarians tend to be a happier. indeed, research may bear this out in some ways. keeping in mind that life is unfair, and unequal – if not inherently, at least we can agree it is at present so:

MacCulloch (2000) reported that … in the United States only liberals are made less happy by inequality. Thus, the effects of societal characteristics depend to some extent on the ideological views of respondents.
(Deiner, E. and Seligman, M. “Beyond Money: Towards an Economy of Well-Being” Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 2004)

the belief that trade is positive sum, which libertarians tend to have, alleviates a great deal of guilt (as some of will's commenters noted), while participation in free trade creates unhappiness and dissonance among liberals. and then there's the whole belief that consumerism is the great evil consuming our souls.

the liberal (and indeed, the conservative) point of view on human nature states that if left to our own devices, society would devolve into a dirty, violent, chaos devoid of good will or prosperity. we’d all lop off each other’s heads, force our youngins to sew wallets 17 hours a day, and worse still – we’d all smoke crack. and we certainly would not send our children to school (they're too busy with the wallets). what an awful thing to think about your species. it would make me cranky too.

i can go all day without encountering aggravating things - having to pay taxes or read about politics, for example. these are activities i go out of my way for. the things that make liberals unhappy are all around - rampant consumerism, inequality, trade, etc. etc...

let's forget about all these anti-povery policies. if we’re all truly concerned with well-being as the ultimate goal (which, granted, not everyone is), if we see gross national happiness as a greater meter than gross national product, we should all be libertarians. now, who’s gonna tell king wangchuck?

Labels: ideology, well being