I’ve devoted my CJO column on several occasions to the subject of happiness research, looking for relationships between self-identified personal happiness or satisfaction and economic, political, or religious factors.

One of the key researchers in the field is Arthur Brooks of Syracuse University. His new essay for the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal is well worth a read. A key passage: 

Pundits and politicians on the left often tell us that a free
economy makes for an unhappy population: the disruptions of capitalism
make us insecure, and we would prefer the security of generous welfare
programs and national health care. But for most people, it turns out,
that isn?t true.

To begin with, those who favor less government intervention in our
economic affairs are happier than those who favor more. When asked in
2004 whether it was the government?s responsibility to improve the
living standards of Americans, 26 percent of those who agreed called
themselves very happy, versus 37 percent who disagreed. When asked in
1996 whether it should be ?the government?s responsibility to keep
prices under control,? those who said it ?definitely should be? were a
quarter less likely to say that they were very happy than those who
said it ?definitely should not be.?

You might be tempted to ascribe this correlation to the unhappy poor
who favor government intervention to improve their lot. But a look at
entire nations, it?s important to note, shows that freer economies mean
happier populations in general. In 2002, the International Social
Survey Programme measured happiness in nearly three dozen countries. In
the same year, as in every year since 1995, the Wall Street Journal
and the Heritage Foundation compiled the Index of Economic Freedom,
scoring nations on such criteria as the freedom to operate a business,
trade with other nations, ease of investment, property rights, and
level of business corruption. The result was an aggregate score from 0
to 100, where 100 meant maximum freedom. Near the top, scoring around
80, were most of the Anglophone countries; most Western European
countries scored in the 65?75 range; formerly Communist countries and
developing nations were lower; and at the bottom sat North Korea. If
you apply these data to the International Social Survey Programme?s
nations, you will find that a 1-percentage-point increase in economic
freedom is associated with a 2-point rise in the percentage of the
population who say that they are completely happy or very happy.