Abstract
In this paper a paradox is revealed in the politics of well-being over the means and ends of happiness. That paradox, in brief, is that although happiness is argued to be the ultimate end of all governmentality, in order to serve as that end, it first needs to be translated into a means for bolstering the economy, for only that way can a teleology of happiness gain a foothold in a world which prioritizes economic growth as an end in itself. To show this the paper gives a history of subjective well-being (SWB) research, and contrasts it with the politics of happiness in the UK, where SWB has in the past decade been translated into a discourse around the psychological wealth of the nation via the concepts of mental capital (MC) and mental well-being (MWB).
Highlights
On April 2nd, 2012, the United Nations held a high level meeting in New York City to discuss methods for raising happiness levels across the world
The report that followed months later called it an “historic event” (RGB 2012, 10). Was it “historic”? How did such an event come about and what were its effects? Or, considering the issue more generally, since the conference itself is symbolic of something more wide-reaching, where did this political concern with happiness come from and where is it heading? The usual answer to the first part of this question, the one given in most news reports discussing the “new economics movement,” is that it stems from a particular moment in the 1970s, when the seventeen-year-old ruler of Bhutan, King Jigme Singye Wangchuck, coined the term gross national happiness” (GNH), stating that it should be the goal of governmental policy rather than GDP, and thereby ushered in a unique commitment to happiness in international politics, setting an example for others to follow
As that science was translated into politics in the twenty-first century, a paradox arose: happiness was made into a means so that it could become an end
Summary
On April 2nd, 2012, the United Nations held a high level meeting in New York City to discuss methods for raising happiness levels across the world. I contrast this, in section III, with the history of SWB research, tracing its origins to public opinion polling in the post-World War II era, a moment when, for the first time in history, pollsters like George Gallup and Hadley Cantril provided quantitative methods for translating self-reports about human wellbeing into useable statistics of national happiness. This data was used by economists in the 1970s to criticize the growth paradigm of neoclassical economics, and inspire a renewed commitment to well-being as the ultimate end of governmentality. I reveal a tension arising over the means and ends of government, as happiness-as-end is turned into a means for economic growth so that it can survive in a world which prioritizes wealth as an end in itself
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