The Pursuit of Happiness

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

In a recent article in talk_politics sophia_sadek presented an excellent article about the myth of natural property and in part the distinction between the "pursuit of happiness" as included in the Declaration of Independence contrasted with "property".

Now I'd like to start by mentioning that I do agree with the notion of a "natural right" to property (yes, an interesting thing from an anarcho-socialist to say, right?). I agree with not only the idea of natural, inalienable rights (even if they are socially mediated), but also with personal property. I certainly prefer mutual cooperatives rather than joint-stock as a model for capital ownership for example.

Even more so, I follow the classic liberals in their complete opposition in ownership of real estate without compensation to the public. For those numerous libertarians who think that is a socialist attack on sacred property rights, I can only urge you to read with a little care what your heroes, the enlightened dead white men, such as John Locke, Adam Smith, Thomas Paine, David Ricardo, John Stuart Mill et al., thought about landed property. Their answers may surprise you - and they were right.

But this isn't just to raise the debate over the moral legitimacy of political economy. What I want to raise is a return to the question of the pursuit of happiness, as sophia_sadek raised.. Which right do you think is more important, the right to property or the right to the pursuit of happiness?.



Now I presume that everyone here now those great lines from the American Declaration of Independence. Some consider them among the finest words in the English language; certainly that was the view of Ho Chi-Minh who repeated them as the opening words for the 1945 Proclamation of Independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.

The notion of Happiness in this context is very much tied to the language of the period. Richard Cumberland (1672), who first used the phrase (that I know of) referred used the phrase meaning the promotion of well-being in others. In Hannah Arendt (On Revolution, 1962) the pursuit of happiness (a chapter is spent on this subject) refers to public freedom and the ability to engage in public participation and well as private welfare. Arendt argues against limiting happiness to the private sphrere and that the lack of public freedom is a key cause leads to totalitarianism (Arendt also wrote On Totalitarianism). As well as the usual varieties (Stalinism and Nazism) Arendt also locates the possibility of a 'totalitarian democracy' based on the instrumentalisation of mass society; she sees the only viable alternative to be the "revolutionary spirit" of public participation as found in federations of councils, similar to the polis of the ancient Hellenes (which interestingly, became a bit of an obsession for Thomas Jefferson as he aged).

In 1999 Frey and Stutzer, University of Zurich, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics, have empirically correlated social participation with happiness. This is in addition to work (such as the The Economost's Quality of Life Index, which showed a positive correlation between GDP per capita and quality of life, as expeted. However it also showed ignificant disparities between the two depending on how that wealth was used. The nations were the Quality of Life was significantly higher (10 ranks or more) than their GDP per capita in the larger economies included places like Sweden (+14), Italy (+15), Spain (+14) and New Zealand (+10). Places where the QoL index was significantly lower that their GDP per capita included the United States (-11), the United Kingdom (-16), Saudi Arabia (-23), and almost at the bottom of the list (despite being a mid-range economy according to GDP per capita), was Russia (-50). The best places to live, overall, were Ireland, Switzerland, Norway, Luxembourg, Sweden, Australia, Iceland, Italy, Denmark and Spain, Singapore and Finland.

Also worthy of reference is the excellent study by two British epidemiologists, Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, "The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Betterl", 2010). There is a popular slideshow, which illustrates a key point of the book for each of eleven different health and social problems: physical health, mental health, drug abuse, education, imprisonment, obesity, social mobility, trust and community life, violence, teenage pregnancies, and child well-being, outcomes are significantly worse in more unequal rich countries.



The pursuit of happiness. It's about having public freedoms, it's about engaging in the public sphere, and it's about developing the economic capacity for others to engage in these activities as well as looking after our private well-being. Because that will make a more enlightened, free and democratic society. And that will make us happier.

Comments

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

I like your updated definition of the pursuit of happiness, it works for me.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Thank you. It's part of my running campaign to develop a theory best described as "libertarianism without dickery". :)

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

I will certainly be interested in reading more in that case.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

How do I hide part of my entry behind a link? What is an lj-cut? (http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=75)

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Too long you think? Is that what you're saying in a somewhat passive-aggressive manner?

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry if it sounded that way, my only intention is to suggest that yes, a cut would be useful.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

OK will do. And I apologise for not including a smiley at the end of that message.. I did *think* it!

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Thumbs up!

(Smileys are useful) :-)

[surferelf.livejournal.com]

You're kidding, right? Coming from an anarcho-socialist, this is like a tweet!

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Who's anarcho-socialist?

[surferelf.livejournal.com]

Is that a koan? Like, "What is the sound of one hand clapping?"

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I heard a story of a monk who was given utter drudgery for days by his master who then gave him this koan.

The monk smacked his master across the jaw. "That's the sound of one hand clapping!"

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

*raises hand*

[terminator44.livejournal.com]

I tend to identify with classical liberalism, but I admit I'm not too knowledgeable on its views on property you talk about. Where can I read about these views in more detail?

John Stuart Mill

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

John Stuart Mill, The Principle of Political Economy

When the sacredness of property is talked of, it should always be remembered that any such sacredness doe snot belong in the same degree to landed property. No man made the land. It is the original inheritance of the whole species. Its appropriation is wholly a question of general expediency. When private property in land is not expedient, it is unjust. It is no hardship to anyone to be excluded from what others have produced: they were not bound to produce it for his use, and he loses nothing by not sharing in what otherwise would not have existed at all. But it is some hardship to be born into the world and to find all nature's gifts previously engrossed, and no place left for the new-comer. [book 2, ch. 2, sec. 6.]

Landlords grow rich in their sleep without working, risking or economizing. The increase in the value of land, arising as it does from the efforts of an entire community, should belong to the community and not to the individual who might hold title. [Book 5, Ch. 2, Sec. 5]

Those who think that the land of a country exists for the sake of a few thousand land-owners, and that so long as rents are paid, society and government have fulfilled their function, may see in this consummation a happy end to Irish difficulties. But this is not a time, nor is the human mind now in a condition, in which such insolent pretensions can be maintained. The land of Ireland, the land of every country, belongs to the people of that country.

[Book 2., Chap. 10, Sec. 1]

A tax on rent falls wholly on the landlord. There are no means by which he can shift the burden upon anyone else.

[Book 5, Chap. III, Sec. 2]

(I have to leave to catch a bus will give you some other in a couple of hours)

Ricardo and Paine

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

David Ricardo

"It follows then, that the interest of the landlord is always opposed to the interest of every other class in the community. His situation is never so prosperous, as when food is scarce and dear: whereas, all other persons are greatly benefited by procuring food cheap. High rent and low profits, for they invariably accompany each other."

[An Essay on Profits (and the Rent of Land]

"Sustained by some of the greatest names -- I will say by every name of the rist rank in Political Economy from Turgot and Adam Smith to [James] Mill -- I hold that the land of a country presents conditions which separate it economically from the great mass of the other objects of wealth."

"Rent is that portion of the produce of the earth which is paid to the landlord for the use of the original and indestructible powers of the soil."

[Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, Chap. II]

Thomas Paine

"[I]t is the value of the improvement, only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property. Every proprietor, therefore, of cultivated lands, owes the community a ground-rent (for I know of no better term to express the idea) for the land which he holds; and it is from this ground-rent that the fund proposed in this plan is to issue. ...The plan I have to propose ... is, To create a national fund, out of which there shall be paid to every person, when arrived at the age of twenty-one yers ... a compensation in part, for the loss of his or her natural inheritance, by the introduction of landed property ..."

"Men did not make the earth, and though he had a natural right to occupy it, he had no right to locate as his property in perpetuity any part of it; neither did the Creator of the earth open a land-office, from whence the first title-deeds should issue."

"The earth, in its natural state … is supporting but a small number of inhabitants, compared with shat it is capable of doing in a cultivated state. And impossible to separate the improvement made by cultivation from the earth itself upon which that improvement is made, the idea of landed property arose from that inseparable connection; but it is nevertheless true that it is value of the improvement only, and not the earth itself, that is individual property. Every proprietor, therefore, of cultivated land owes to the community a ground-rent, for I know no better term to express the idea by, for the land which he holds. …Cultivation is one of the greatest natural improvements ever made. . . .But the landed monopoly that began with it has dispossessed more than half the inhabitants of every nation of their natural inheritance."

[Agrarian Justice, 1797]

Smith and Locke

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Adam Smith

As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce.

[Book I., Chap. 6]

As soon as land becomes private property, the landlord demands a share of almost all the produce which the labourer can either raise, or collect from it. His rent makes the first deduction from the produce of the labour which is employed upon the land.

[Wealth of Nations, Book 1, Ch.8]

Every improvement in the circumstances of the society tends either directly or indirectly to raise the real rent of land, to increase the real wealth of the landlord, his power of purchasing the labour, or the produce of the labour of other people.

The real value of the landlord's share, his real command of the labour of other people, not only rises with the real value of the produce, but the proportion of his share to the whole produce rises with it.

[Book I, Ch. 11]

Both ground-rnets and the ordinary rent of land are a species of revenue which the owner, in many cases, enjoys without any care or attention of his own. Though a part of this revenue should be taken from him in order to defray the expenses of the state, no discouragement will thereby be given to any sort of industry. ...Ground-rents, and the ordinary rnt of land, are therefore, perhaps, the species of revenue which can best bear to have a peculiar tax imposed upon them.

Ground rents seem in this respect a more proper subject of peculiar taxation than even the ordinary rent of land. ...Ground-rents, so far as they exceed the ordinary rent of land, are altogether owing to the good government of the sovereign. ...Nothing can be more reasonable than that a fund which owes its existence to the good government of the stae should be taxed peculiarly, or should contribute something more than the greater part of other funds towards the support of that government.

A tax upon ground-rents would not raise the rent of houses. It would fall altogether upon the owner of the ground-rent, who acts always as a monopolist and exacts the greatest rent which can be got for the use of the ground.

[Book V, Chap. 2, Art.1]

John Locke

When the sacredness of property is talked of, it should be remembered that any such sacredness does not belong in the same degree to landed property.

It is very clear that God, as King David says, "has given the earth to the children of men"; given it to mankind in common.

[Essay on Civil Government, Sec. 25.]

It is in vain in a Country whose great Fund is Land, to hope to lay the publick charge of the Government on any thing else; there at last it will terminate. The Merchant (do what you can) will not bear it, the Labourer cannot, and therefore the Landholder must: And whether he were best do it, by laying it directly, where it will at last settle, or by letting it come to him by the sinking of his Rents, which when they are once fallen every one knows are not easily raised again, let him consider.

[Some Considerations of the Consequences of the Lowering of Interest and the Raising the Value of Money]

King Croesus comes to mind.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

In the legend of King Croesus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croesus#Interview_with_Solon), he supposedly asked Solon if he did not consider him to be the happiest man he knew. Solon commented that he could not judge since Croesus was still alive. The people he considered happiest were already six feet under.

There are people today who consider Bill Gates to be as happy as Croesus, although they are unaware of the story. There is little understanding of how wealth does not automatically confer happiness.

[404.livejournal.com]

The pursuit of happiness and the ability to have my own property are intertwined and can't be parsed out in some "either or" scenario.

[spaz-own-joo.livejournal.com]

Can you think of some sort of contrived scenario where your pursuit of happiness might come into conflict with someone else's right to property? How often do scenarios like this occur in real life, in your estimation?

[404.livejournal.com]

My pursuit of happiness might involve smashing up the neighbor's house because he makes too much money in my head. Whenever a riot happens this is shown, though happily it does not happen too often.

A robber's pursuit to steal from his neighbor... a little more often.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

My pursuit of happiness might involve smashing up the neighbor's house....

This is the issue raised above. In contemporary times we have become used to believing that "the pursuit happiness" means subjective hedonism. As I tried to illustrate above, it actually meant something quite different into the US Declaration etc. Perhaps if we made more effort to revive the meaning of the day...

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

The problem is that not all world cultures esteem happiness. So in the ones that don't this entire concept is nice, but irrelevant.

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

From my own Christian perspective, I do certainly agree insofar that happiness in a metaphysical sense does have much to do with human interaction and community, I hesitate to even make the comparison with that and property rights as to which one is more important, as property rights play a rather significant practical role in allowing happiness to occur.

If I have any complaint to make it's with the following:

"In 1999 Frey and Stutzer, University of Zurich, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics, have empirically correlated social participation with happiness. This is in addition to work (such as the The Economost's Quality of Life Index, which showed a positive correlation between GDP per capita and quality of life, as expeted. However it also showed ignificant disparities between the two depending on how that wealth was used. The nations were the Quality of Life was significantly higher (10 ranks or more) than their GDP per capita in the larger economies included places like Sweden (+14), Italy (+15), Spain (+14) and New Zealand (+10). Places where the QoL index was significantly lower that their GDP per capita included the United States (-11), the United Kingdom (-16), Saudi Arabia (-23), and almost at the bottom of the list (despite being a mid-range economy according to GDP per capita), was Russia (-50). The best places to live, overall, were Ireland, Switzerland, Norway, Luxembourg, Sweden, Australia, Iceland, Italy, Denmark and Spain, Singapore and Finland.

Also worthy of reference is the excellent study by two British epidemiologists, Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, "The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Betterl", 2010). There is a popular slideshow, which illustrates a key point of the book for each of eleven different health and social problems: physical health, mental health, drug abuse, education, imprisonment, obesity, social mobility, trust and community life, violence, teenage pregnancies, and child well-being, outcomes are significantly worse in more unequal rich countries.



The pursuit of happiness. It's about having public freedoms, it's about engaging in the public sphere, and it's about developing the economic capacity for others to engage in these activities as well as looking after our private well-being. Because that will make a more enlightened, free and democratic society. And that will make us happier."



5:10-8:12

I believe humanity has been trying to find the answer to the question of "what brings happiness?" since the dawn of time, and it's not something I believe has a reasonable chance of being found through an epidemiological study that results in definitive answers like the one in your final paragraph, even when I agree that those things can and do make people happy. It's a misapplied tool, inadequate for the demands of the question. In fact, it's hard to think of a tool that would be suited to that task.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Christianity brings happiness until some people start focusing on certain parts of the Gospels and then start engaging in pogroms as a testament of piety. Then Christianity starts meeting with "heathens" in supposed good faith and cutting off all their heads as a testament of piety. Then Christianity persecutes heresy and burns people alive in churches as a testament in piety. Finally Christians butcher each other in carload lots as a testament of piety, whereupon the impious infidels have had enough and defang L'Infame and there was much rejoicing.

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

I read that comment and I see:

"I don't care about the substance of your comment, but on one of your self-described characteristics you mentioned in passing which I can now use as an excuse to vent."

I won't speak for others, but this is starting to get on my nerves, and I've let it pass for quite a while. From now on, out of courtesy, if you could avoid putting these in my inbox, I would be most appreciative.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

My comment was that Christianity brings no happiness to anyone except those who benefit from it temporally. And that in any event one cannot be a good Christian and a good capitalist at the same time, one can be one or the other.

Too, the idea that we should entrust trial and error as our preferred method of solving social problems is another overly simplistic solution to complex issues. Trial and error is always fun until people starve to death to the tune of millions because of the "error" part.

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

"My comment was that Christianity brings no happiness to anyone except those who benefit from it temporally."

Whether intentional or not you are claiming to know how my faith impacts my life from a position not justifiable to comment from.

"And that in any event one cannot be a good Christian and a good capitalist at the same time, one can be one or the other.

I believe you can be quite successful in an environment of economic freedom and quite Christian as well.

"Too, the idea that we should entrust trial and error as our preferred method of solving social problems is another overly simplistic solution to complex issues. Trial and error is always fun until people starve to death to the tune of millions because of the "error" part."

Trial and error doesn't have to be on a scale where failure is catastrophic. It has to be applied on smaller, survivable scale. It's odd that you should mention it though, because our current paradigm is still trial and error, but without acknowledging it for what it is (there's far too much pride in politics to possibly accept such a humble realization at this point and we prefer to think in terms of getting it 'right' the first time when it comes to which politicians we think will do a good job), and we are doing it on a scale where failure would be catastrophic, and the odds of success aren't any better for the increased risk.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I said Christianity, that does not imply a comment on your faith.

I agree, one can be successful. One cannot be Christian without blatantly revising the entire Bible in the sense that say, Conservapedia wants to do so.

A smaller, survivable scale might be well and good but there are precious few people who would have the enthusiasm for it, and if there were, what works on the scale of a few hundreds or thousands will not and can not on the scale of modern states whose population numbers in the least populated states in the millions or tens of millions.

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

"A smaller, survivable scale might be well and good but there are precious few people who would have the enthusiasm for it, and if there were, what works on the scale of a few hundreds or thousands will not and can not on the scale of modern states whose population numbers in the least populated states in the millions or tens of millions."

Perhaps then it should stay as a large number of small systems each allowed to experiment on their own solutions. Others can adopt methods that appear to work in different areas, or not as circumstance demands.

Again, you don't increase the odds of success by having one system make slow, inflexible adaptations one at a time.

"One cannot be Christian without blatantly revising the entire Bible in the sense that say, Conservapedia wants to do so."

Success is just having a little more at the end of each day than you spent so you can go on living. Everything else is just success to varying degrees. Since nothing in Christian philosophy requires that you starve or run at a loss, then your statement still belays a fundamental misunderstanding of the concepts.

And lacking enthusiasm is one of the symptoms of our misplaced priority of expecting our politicians and experts to have one plan that works, in defiance of reason, without having to experience failure.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I prefer slow adaptations to trying to short-circuit processes that take centuries in a very short span of time.

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

It's not a short-circuit of the process, it's adjusting the scale it operates on. You didn't like this idea because you perceived that if it failed it could devastate millions. When I pointed out that we pretty much do trial and error now on an less-than-survivable scale with our current format, that concern vanished, now replaced with much more vague concerns.

Political change and procedural change (as it pertains to dealing with complex systems) should not be conflated with one another. And not all experimentation should be considered limited to the public arena. The private arena has been dealing with complexities by focusing on what each individual institution knows and understands without trying to grapple with the whole enchilada for time out of mind. It's one of the advantages of a market that has yet to find a match in non-market institutions.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

They should not be in a theoretical sense but they will always be in a practical sense. The idea of a private sector/public sector differentiation is bullshit, to put it bluntly. The Free Market has what competition it does from government regulation, so the mere reality of there being a competitive private sector instead of an oligopoly is due to the public sector.

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

Look, we're drifting here.

What happened to your concern over a system that fails on a devastating scale? Do you think that when we enact legislation that involves itself heavily into trying to manage a mathematically complex system for a more desirable outcome in its view, that it is not simultaneously risking the very thing you a moment ago told me you were not willing to risk?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I do, yes. That's one reason I don't like how long bills like the current healthcare reform act are, and why I also think that any shift to UHC must be a gradual and well-planned one that mitigates shock to the system.

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

It's not avoiding 'shocking' the system in this case which can reduce the odds of simple human error when engaging in complex systems, nor the scope on which such an error would take effect. Complexity and its effects do not reduce by adjusting speed, it only does when reducing scale.

This is a different kind of risk than the risk of upheaval avoided by slow deliberate politics. How it is avoided or minimized is likewise different.

And to get back to the video, trial and error is the way that humanity has effectively dealt with systems which are beyond even an expert's grasp. The problem trying to be tackled are mathematical and numerical, but not in the sense of traditional algebraic equations that produce pristine, predictable graphs, but chaotic mathematics in which small, almost insignificant differences in starting conditions produce drastically and wildly unpredictable results.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

You're talking about gaps in scale that are quite big. A few tens of thousands or a few hundred people are not the same as the big states of the modern era which have populations in the tens or hundreds of millions. The trial and error on the one scale very much does not translate into the other scale.

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

You're making me repeat myself. I've already said that in this case perhaps its best that the scale stays small, and let each locality adopt methods seen elsewhere or innovate new ones as they wish.

[jerseycajun.livejournal.com]

"I said Christianity, that does not imply a comment on your faith."

It does when the person you're talking to counts themselves as a member of that faith.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

As I do also count myself a member of that Faith I see nothing wrong with the statement as I made it.

Mod Request?

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Could I have political economy added as a tag to this?

Re: Mod Request?

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

Sure thing!