Happiness, Kylie-style

Just in case any of you are finding the world a little hard-to-bear at the moment, take heart—a better life can be legislated.  At least this is what one adviser to the Australian Democrats believes. Writing in The Australian, she says that governments can, and should, influence  ‘love, sex, and happy marriages’.

What this particular writer had in mind are laws mandating flexible, and shorter, working hours, and longer, better paid, maternity and paternity leave. I am certainly not against these things, provided, of course, that employers and employees can make them work. But I am not sure that these measures will really spread joy through the land.

An election is imminent. Instead of timid little demands, this is an opportunity to extract really big whoppers from would-be governments.  Here is my idea of a happiness platform:

People of Australia, vote for us, and we will devote ourselves to improving your personal life and to making your marriage happy.

As our first measure, we will require all single people to enrol in government-subsidised dating services. That’s right, if we are elected, even the most desperate of you will be guaranteed a date every Saturday night.

For those new to the mysteries of romance, we will provide free sex videos. (These will be suitably censored, of course, to ensure wholesome family values.)

Now I may be just an old grump, but as you can probably tell, I am a little dubious about the idea that government legislation can make you happy. The way I see it, if laws made people happy, we should already be the most jovial nation on earth. Because, every aspect of our behaviour is already subject to some sort of legislation.

The truth is that Australians are not very happy at all. There is an epidemic of depression in our land; we have one of the highest youth suicide rates in the world. Australians are not happy, and I humbly suggest that less, not more, legislation is the answer.

According to most psychological theories, what would really help make people happy is more freedom. Depression is a complicated problem, one that has touched me personally, and I do not wish to trivialise it by being overly simplistic. But one common trait among depressed people is a sense of powerlessness—of not being in control of their own destiny. People with depression become despondent because they feel ‘helpless’. One of the goals of psychological treatment is to give depressed people a sense of power; to instill in them the belief that what they do, and how they act, will affect their future.

All of us, not just those who are clinically depressed, need to possess a similar sense of control over our lives. The more dependent we are on others, including the government, the more powerless we feel, and the more depressed we become.

Although the connection between dependency and depression is well known, some Australian intellectuals, as we have seen, continue to insist that we need more, not less, government in our lives.

In Australia, capitalism is often referred to as ‘economic rationalism’.  The pejorative use of the word rationalism reminds me of Mr Spock from the old Star Trek series. Spock was always rational and never emotional. When things were going well, the crew always bowed to his logical mind. But when the Klingons attacked, and enemy phasers rocked the Starship Enterprise, fear and loathing swept the crew and Spock’s ice-cold rationality was condemned as inhuman. As, of course, it was.

Critics portray rational economics, especially free markets in a similar way. Markets are inhuman, they claim.  Markets have no empathy or compassion, and they leave some people worse off than others.

Yet, the market consists of people freely interacting with one another.  If the market is unfair, heartless or cruel, then it must reflect our human weaknesses. After all, the market is only the sum total of our individual choices.

Imagine a society of one thousand persons each of whom has an identical total wealth of $10,000. One member of this society happens to be Kylie Minogue. Suppose she decides to stage a concert.  Any member of this society is free to attend, or to stay home. Those who choose to attend will be charged $100 each for a ticket. In other words, concert-goers must part with some of their wealth and forego the many other things they could buy with $100. The exchange is purely voluntary. Those attending give up what they value less for a concert that they value more. As it turns out, everyone decides to hear Kylie sing.

At the conclusion of the concert, this society, which once had perfect equality of wealth, now has massive inequality. Kylie is more than ten times richer than everyone else.
Now, here is the point. If the initial state of affairs in this society was just, because everyone had equal wealth, and if it is also just to allow people to voluntarily exchange their money for something they want (assuming their desires are not harmful to others), then it follows that the final unequal distribution of wealth is also just. It is really difficult to find the unfairness.
So, why do critics argue that inequality in wealth is unfair, no matter how it arises?

The usual answer is jealousy. Those with less envy those with more. This may be the reason why so many critics of free markets prefer to measure relative poverty rather than to define poverty in absolute terms. In relative terms, some people will always fall at the bottom of the income scale.

They may have homes, cars, mobile phones and colour televisions but they are still less well off than those who have more.

Defining poverty in relative terms permits critics to argue that free markets are always unfair, no matter how much prosperity they produce.

Intellectuals want to make laws (lots of them) to ensure that the benefits of society are allocated by a central government according to a merit system, preferably one devised by them. Thus, they favour laws that take from Kylie and give to the opera (a much more meritorious recipient). They favour laws to take from taxpayers and give to symphonies, filmmakers, and other favoured groups.

You get the idea. Take from everyone and give back to those who meet the merit criteria.  All this taking and giving back puts enormous power in the hands of government.  We have to assume that the government will make fairer judgements than we would by freely interacting with one another.  Unfortunately, world history does not support this assumption. There have been many more bad governments than good ones.

Ronald Regan had a joke about the complacent attitude of people to the blessings they get from free markets and private property. It begins with the proverbial travelling salesman who is asked to stay for dinner with a farm family. He finds the farmer, his wife, three children, and a pig seated at the table. The pig has three medals hanging around its neck and a wooden leg.

The salesman cannot help but comment. ‘I see there is a pig joining us for dinner’.

‘Yep says the farmer, ‘this is a very special pig. See those three medals around his neck?  You might like to know how he got them.’

‘Oh yes’, said the salesman.

‘Well, one day our oldest son fell in a pond and was drowning. The pig dove into the pond, swam to our boy, and pulled him back to safety. He got the first medal for saving our boy’s life.

‘He got the second medal when a fire accidentally lit up the barn trapping our daughter. The pig ran in through flames, got his teeth into the edge of her jumper and dragged her out of the burning barn.

‘A little while later, when our youngest was cornered in the stockyard by an angry bull, that pig squirmed under the fence, grabbed the bull by the tail and held him while our boy escaped. He got the third medal for that”.

The salesman said, ‘I can see why you have the pig at the dinner table  and why he got the medals. But, tell me, how did he get the wooden leg?’

‘Well’, said the farmer, ‘a pig like that, you don’t eat him all at once’.

The blessings of social and economic freedom are always under threat, even from those who benefit from them.  Let us resolve not be like that farmer. Let us not permit the freedom that has given us so much to be devoured by a jealous few. Let’s refuse to live the legislated life.

About the Author:
Professor Steven Schwartz is vice-chancellor of Murdoch University.  This is an edited extract from his address in Melbourne as part of The Centre for Independent Studies’ 25th anniversary lecture series.