22 January 2022 | New Scientist | 5The leader
“Life, Liberty and the pursuit of
Happiness.” These are three unalienable
rights emphasised by the US Declaration
of Independence as being the duty
of their leaders to protect and secure.
The third one gives perhaps most pause
for thought. What should governments –
and all of us – be doing to maximise
societal and personal happiness?
Indeed, what even defines happiness?
Politicans and philosophers
have wrangled over the apparent
contradictions and conflicts that
such questions throw up for centuries.
Meanwhile, a simple equivalence has
come to be made across the world.
Many believe that happiness comes with
having a bigger cake and eating it, so only
economic growth and the pursuit of
material progress can provide happiness.Having basic material needs such as
food, shelter and clothing covered will,
of course, always be important to our well-
being. Even asking questions about the
nature of happiness may imply being in
the happy situation of relative prosperity.
Happiness is a “squishy concept”,
though, as our special feature on page 38shows, and care should be taken not to
over-interpret results from the relatively
young discipline of research on the
subject. But in higher-income parts of
the world, at least, the greatest levels of
satisfaction seem to occur in countries
such as Finland with mediocre levels ofeconomic growth. Higher-growth
countries such as the US fare worse.
You need only look to the challenges
of climate change, biodiversity loss and
pollution to see how growth-fuelled
economic models can work against long-
term happiness. The covid-19 pandemic
has also led many people to reassess what
really contributes to their well-being.
Security, community, relationships,
a clean environment and connection
with nature, the ability to bring up
children stress-free, and above all
equality: these are things that we
know correlate with happiness for
most of us. Countries that care for
their own success should find in that
another reason not to blindly continue
with business-as-usual, and seek to
build back not just better, but happier. ❚Pursuing happiness
Science is increasingly telling us where the founts of our well-being lie
“ The greatest life satisfaction
seems to occur in countries
with mediocre levels of growth”Chief executive Nina Wright
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