Free people are happy people

[DixieBelle]

I've cut and pasted what I feel are the important points. Lots of data at the link - http://www.city-journal.org/2008/18_2_happy_people.html

The earliest American definition of liberty—stated frequently by the Founding Fathers—is about constraints on personal actions: if I don’t hurt anybody else, I should be free to pursue my own will. As Thomas Jefferson put it in his first inaugural address, “A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.” Despite more recent attempts to expand our understanding of freedom to include claims on one another or on government—FDR’s 1941 State of the Union speech, for example, which mentioned “freedom from want”—about two-thirds of Americans still define freedom in terms of doing what they want, being able to make their own choices, or having liberty in speech and religion.

Understanding freedom is a matter of no small importance. The Founders believed that it was one of at least three fundamental rights from God, along with life and the pursuit of happiness. These three rights are interrelated: not only does liberty, of course, depend on life, but the pursuit of happiness depends on liberty. In fact, evidence shows that freedom and happiness are strongly linked. But what kind of freedom makes Americans happiest? And what can government best do to promote freedom and help us pursue happiness, as is our inalienable right?

Even when holding income, sex, education, race, religion, politics, and family status constant, we find that people who felt free were about 18 percentage points more likely than others to say that they were very happy.

Freedom and happiness are highly correlated, then; even more significant, several studies have shown that freedom causes happiness. In a famous 1976 experiment, psychologists in Connecticut gave residents on one floor of a nursing home the freedom to decide which night of the week would be “movie night,” as well as the freedom to choose and care for the plants on their floor. On another floor of the same nursing home, residents did not receive these choices and responsibilities. The first group of residents—no healthier or happier than the second when the experiment began—quickly showed greater alertness, more activity, and better mood. A year and a half later, they were still doing better, and even dying at half the rate of the residents on the other floor.

The data and evidence don’t prove that all kinds of freedom bring equal happiness, or that more freedom is always better than less. For example, what about economic freedom? 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 other words, religious tolerance—even tolerance of anti-religiousness—is strongly linked with happiness.

Furthermore, many of the happiest people in America achieve their happiness through faith. When asked in the 2000 GSS about the experiences that made them feel the most free, about 11 percent of adults put religious and spiritual experiences at the top of the list. And these people were more likely than those mentioning any other experience to say that they were very happy.

—“moral freedom overload,” to coin a phrase—may apply in cases of moral choice. Here, too much freedom leaves us insecure and searching, unable to distinguish right from wrong, and thus miserable. And religion, which often shapes and limits people’s moral choices, is one way people have found to mitigate moral freedom overload.

Many would suggest that the best way to avoid moral freedom overload is not through religion but through government power.

But using the law to enforce moral behavior—and thus, in theory, to promote happiness—can miss the mark for three reasons. First, government is better equipped to constrain people’s actions than to change their morals. Worldviews depend on culture more than on politicians. True, laws can affect culture, but principally they entice people to behave in a way that avoids penalties—or to hide their actions from the law. Not only does this do little for happiness; it also can turn immoral people into criminals. Second, though extreme licentiousness isn’t a good idea, a large body of

evidence suggests that what many would call vice (moderate alcohol use, for instance, and sex within committed relationships) is associated with much virtue—happiness, health, and prosperity. Saint Augustine himself taught that moderation is more difficult than abstinence and hence can be more virtuous. And third, of course, government restrictions on morality tend to stifle the very freedoms that make people happy. For enforcing morality, government is a terribly blunt tool, potentially stripping away large amounts of economic and political freedom in order to hone a bit of good behavior.

Is it ever appropriate for the government to abridge moral freedom? Obviously it is, when my moral license unreasonably harms you. Then it becomes a question not of protecting me from myself but of protecting you from me. Thomas Jefferson made this point explicitly when he said that “to close the circle of felicities,” the government had to “restrain men from injuring one another.” Of course, the boundary between my liberty and your harm is often fuzzy.

But in cases where all can agree that our private, immoral behavior does not harm others, our happiness is best served with rules in our private lives that constrain our morality and protect us from excess in moments of personal weakness. The recipe for happiness is a combination of individual liberty, personal decency, and moderation. And government protects our freedom best when it forgoes infringements on our moral choices but vigorously defends our right to restrict these choices ourselves.

If the importance of liberty to happiness sounds obvious to you—as obvious as the importance of life to liberty—it’s probably because you’re an American. In many countries, you would find yourself fined, imprisoned, or worse for asserting your right to vote, worship, or even open a business as you wished. America is an oasis of happiness-producing freedom in a world that generally doesn’t believe that citizens can handle freedom and doesn’t trust them to try.

As Americans, we understand that people can be entrusted with freedom, which is why we guard it so jealously. But happiness requires that we also use freedom responsibly—which means, both as individuals and as a nation, balancing abundant private liberty with healthy personal morality.