Happiness: Fire with Fire

I have deep reservations about the usefulness of polling, and therefore my view of the happiness debate is a simple subjectivist view: look at migration. Revealed preferences tend to give a more accurate indicator of beliefs that expressed preferences, so rather than ask people what they think, we should watch what they do. And guess what:

Leaving aside tiny Pacific Islands the number one ranked country in the NEF’s index is Colombia.  One of the worst ranked is the United States.  Where would you rather live?

The answer is obvious.  Thousands risk death each year attempting to get from 38th placed Mexico to the 150th (out of 178) placed United States.  This is just one way that people clearly reveal their preference for a higher standard of living.  I’m sure the New Economics Foundation can blame this on some kind of false-consciousness.  The reality is that it illustrates that the free-market economies and resulting high living standards that the NEF deride are people’s real priorities.

If person A chooses to move from country 1 to country 2, I find it laughable, offensive, and moronic that a cosseted pseudo-economist to maintain that country 2 should be more like country 1.

"How satisfied are you with your life, on a scale of nought to ten?"

• In all the rich places (America, Europe, Japan, Saudi Arabia), most people say they are happy.
• In all the poor ones (mainly in Africa), people say they are not.
• As Angus Deaton of Princeton University puts it, a map of the results looks like an income plot of the world (see map).
• Rich Americans are happier than poor ones; rich Brazilians happier than poorer ones.

• There are some exceptions: Georgia and Armenia [aje: post-Soviet], though not among the world's poorest states, are among the 20 most miserable

See the full article for the weaknesses of this data (of which there are plenty); but at least the happiness agenda has some quantitative, compatible critiques

Finally, tonight's Newsnight (Wednesday) featured a Watermelon from Greenpeace, who finished with those immortal words

the problem with so-called "free markets" is that they aren't free

It's incredible: not only is his ideology fascist ("Britain" was just as happy in the 1970s as "it" is today, therefore I want to confiscate your property to improve the national well-being), but his economics is meaningless. Blimey.