{"id":50682,"date":"2023-11-17T01:00:37","date_gmt":"2023-11-17T06:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=50682"},"modified":"2023-11-16T09:40:55","modified_gmt":"2023-11-16T14:40:55","slug":"qotd-the-essential-meaninglessness-of-happiness-surveys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2023\/11\/17\/qotd-the-essential-meaninglessness-of-happiness-surveys\/","title":{"rendered":"QotD: The essential meaninglessness of &#8220;happiness&#8221; surveys"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p><a href=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:left; padding: 0px 25px 10px 0px\" src=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"400\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-48672\" srcset=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400.png 400w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/QotD-thumbnail-400x400-50x50.png 50w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a>The reality identified here &#8230; is the reason why good economists pay no attention to so-called &#8220;happiness studies&#8221;. Human wants being unlimited, each and every person \u2013 apart from, perhaps, the rare Gandhi \u2013 always experiences a vast array of unsatisfied wants. This lack of satisfaction is felt, by many, as a kind of unhappiness \u2013 at least as a kind of unhappiness that will strike many people to report it as such on &#8220;happiness surveys&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>The good economist understands that ever-greater prosperity does not bring ever-greater felt happiness. But the good economist also understands that people are indeed better off, in a real sense, the higher is their material standard of living. Greater material prosperity brings opportunities to experience new wants, wants that people less prosperous never experience. Inability to satisfy all of these new wants makes many people feel &#8220;unhappy&#8221;. But were these same people less materially prosperous, they would be at least equally &#8220;unhappy&#8221; for want of ability to satisfy needs that their current higher level of material prosperity enables them to satisfy.<\/p>\n<p>Another piece of reality revealed by Rogge&#8217;s point is that worries about technology or trade destroying opportunities to work are misguided. As long as human beings have unmet desires and unfilled wants, human beings will have opportunities to work.<\/p>\n<p>Don Boudreaux, <a href=\"https:\/\/cafehayek.com\/2019\/08\/quotation-of-the-day-2872.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">&#8220;Quotation of the Day\u2026&#8221;, <em>Caf\u00e9 Hayek<\/em>, 2019-08-02.<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The reality identified here &#8230; is the reason why good economists pay no attention to so-called &#8220;happiness studies&#8221;. Human wants being unlimited, each and every person \u2013 apart from, perhaps, the rare Gandhi \u2013 always experiences a vast array of unsatisfied wants. This lack of satisfaction is felt, by many, as a kind of unhappiness [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,41],"tags":[575,1026,289],"class_list":["post-50682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-quotations","tag-happiness","tag-microeconomics","tag-polls"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-dbs","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50682"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50682\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85760,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50682\/revisions\/85760"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}