Abstract
For Richard Layard, happiness should constitute the guiding principle of public policy. However, it remains unclear whether there is a convincing justification for such kinds of happiness policies. To shed some light on this issue, Layard’s battle against status competition for enhancing happiness is evaluated by applying a Popperian perspective. That is, we apply Popper’s evaluation scheme by determining whether Layard’s position meets four criteria derived from Karl Popper’s philosophy. At the normative level, status competition cannot be considered only a social vice, but also a social virtue. At the epistemological level, Layard’s policy advice seems problematic, as it is based on the assumption that the government is able to differentiate between positive and negative incentives arising from status competition. Regarding the political level, Layard argues that counteracting the effects of the status race is a major objective of public policy. Layard is optimistic that the issue of consensus among citizens can be solved, but it remains unclear whether this optimism is justified. He is also confident that the problems of implementation can be overcome. However, there may be a general incompatibility between the level of coercion and status competition, since the latter is deeply rooted in human nature. To sum up, there is neither a convincing argument for stricter measures to combat status competition, nor does political enforcement seem feasible with voters who presumably suffer from ‘false’ preferences. Moreover, there is no clear-cut normative argument to combat status competition from a Popperian perspective. As a more general result, a reorientation of public policy towards happiness, as recommended by Layard, does not seem advisable.
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- 1.
- 2.
In Bünger and Prinz (2010), Popper’s and Layard’s position with respect to smoking is investigated. Since, in that context, Karl Popper’s and Richard Layard’s general approaches to happiness and public policy were described and analyzed comparatively to a certain extent, we restrict ourselves in this paper to remarks on their respective general positions.
- 3.
Similar approaches are developed by Kahneman and Krueger (2006) and Lelkes (2013). Kahneman and Krueger (2006) propose a U-index which contains the time spent in unpleasant states. While their primary reason for focusing on negative aspects seems to be some desirable psychological and statistical properties (Kahneman and Krueger 2006, 19 ff.), they also note political acceptability as an advantage of misery or unhappiness indicators (Kahneman and Krueger 2006, 22). Lelkes (2013, 17) shows that misery as measured by ratings from 0 to 3 on a ten-step life satisfaction/happiness scale, can be better predicted by observable personal characteristics than by happiness.
- 4.
This corresponds to Sidgwick’s “hedonistic zero” (Mayerfeld 1999, 15 and 60), even though we do not wish to restrict Popper to a purely hedonistic interpretation.
- 5.
The position of the zero-line depends on the situation of the society. This is even the case where physiological basic needs are concerned; the same amount of food may feel like starvation in New Zealand and the USA, while seen as abundance in Post-WWII Austria and India (Popper 2012, 119).
- 6.
It seems reasonable to assume that some modes of coercion respect private autonomy, while others do not.
- 7.
Consumption that is relevant to status can take place in various forms, such as owning real estate, driving luxury cars, and also through possessing the “right” cell phones, watches, TV sets, etc.
- 8.
Or maybe even negative savings, i.e., personal debt.
- 9.
Interested voting means that people vote on political proposals according their own preferences. Because people know that it is very unlikely that their own vote will be decisive, there is almost no incentive to vote with respect to outcomes (Shughart 2004); this is called the ‘paradox of voting’. However, moral or ideological motivations may nevertheless induce many if not most people to vote, maybe because they know that they are voting behind the ‘veil of insignificance’ (Kliemt 1986; see also Aidt 2000); this is termed expressive voting (Shughart 2004; Sobel and Wagner 2004).
- 10.
We thank an anonymous referee for asking about these conditions.
- 11.
There may be exceptions where a workaholic neglects his family, but this would not appear to be relevant for public policy (except, perhaps, for blatant cases of neglecting one's children or physical abuse).
- 12.
The other side of the coin is that under this interpersonal aggregation rule, it could be a moral obligation to actively sacrifice the lives of some innocent individuals to increase the total happiness in society as a whole.
- 13.
“Toleration is the necessary consequence of realizing our human fallibility: to err is human, and we do it all the time. So let us pardon each other’s follies. This is the first principle of natural right” (Popper, translating an argument of Voltaire in favor of ‘toleration’ (or tolerance); Popper 1994, p. 190, emphasis in the original text). See also Harsanyi (1997, 134).
- 14.
Of course, there might also be reference groups which are not deliberately chosen, but more coincidental (like one’s family) or where access to the groups is free.
- 15.
Individuals can simultaneously have myopic tendencies in some domains of life and hyperopic characteristics in others. For a more detailed discussion of hyperopia and myopia in the context of public finance, see Fennell (2006).
- 16.
For instance, Bünger (2010) did not find empirical evidence in Europe of patterns of time use that would harm relationships.
- 17.
This procedure, of course, requires individuals to be aware of the comparison processes they apply.
- 18.
Depending on how the gains from the status race are distributed among the population, up to half of the electorate would vote against the proposal. If one assumes that those who benefit from status are more likely to vote, their impact in the election could even be higher.
- 19.
- 20.
Layard advocates a second welfare economics arguments in favor of these measures. Because of the decreasing marginal utility of income, redistribution from the ‘rich’ to the ‘poor’ should lead to an increase in total or average welfare in a society, even if only individual evaluations are taken into account and the welfare losses (caused by the disincentives of progressive taxation) are considered (Layard 2009, 102). This is of course the standard argument of classical utilitarianism in favor of progressive taxation.
- 21.
It might be more appropriate to call this approach ‘pedagogical’.
- 22.
A similar caveat is given by Layard (2006, C27).
- 23.
The level of coercion considered acceptable depends on different dimensions like the maturity of the recipients and their autonomy: Some educational measures which are mostly deemed acceptable when considering educating children are assessed as unacceptable when directed towards adults.
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Acknowledgments
The authors thank Johnny Søraker for his most instructive and concise comments on this paper. A previous version of this paper was presented at the Meeting of the European Public Choice Society 2011 in Rennes and at the conference ‘Well-Being in Contemporary Society’ (wics 2012), University of Twente, 2012. The authors also wish to thank the participants at their respective conference sessions and especially Martin Rode and two anonymous referees. The authors are additionally grateful to Brian Bloch for his comprehensive editing of the manuscript. The usual disclaimer applies with regard to the content.
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Prinz, A., Bünger, B. (2015). The Political Pursuit of Happiness: A Popperian Perspective on Layard’s Happiness Policy. In: Søraker, J., Van der Rijt, JW., de Boer, J., Wong, PH., Brey, P. (eds) Well-Being in Contemporary Society. Happiness Studies Book Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-06459-8_10
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