Freedom, well-being & capitalism

The ONS's effort to measure well-being has produced a backlash. In the Times, Phillip Collins says, to Norm's approval, that "it matters more that a life be freely chosen than that it should be happy." And the Spectator says:

The duty of government in a sane democracy is to protect our freedoms, which include the freedom to be unhappy if we wish. Studies of general contentment are for totalitarian regimes.

This conflict between freedom and happiness is not merely a philosophical one. Research shows it to be a hard empirical fact, in several ways:

- One paper finds that, controlling for other things, "economic freedom is significantly negatively related to life satisfaction."

- Evidence from the US (pdf) and around the world has found that improvements in women's real freedom has been associated with declines in their happiness.

- Barry Schwartz and Sheena Iyengar have argued that more choice (pdf) can lead to frustration and anxiety (pdf).

- Christopher Hsee has described (pdf) how we often choose things that are bad for us; rightists such as Bryan Caplan and Theodore Dalrymple contend that this is especially true for the poor.

But here's the question. Is this trade-off between happiness and freedom an ineradicable fact about human nature, or is it an artefact of a particular social structure?

Two things make me suggest that, to some extent, it's the latter.

First, Paolo Verme shows that the relationship between freedom and happiness depends upon our locus of control. If we have an internal locus - if we feel we are in comtrol of our own lives - then freedom does make us happy. If, however, we have an external locus - we think our fate depends upon fortune or upon others - then freedom doesn't make us happy.

This might help explain why older people in post-communist countries have been especially unhappy (pdf). They were brought up (by indoctrination and experience) to have an external locus of control. They thus saw increased freedom after the collapse of communism as a disconcerting threat.

And here's the thing. Hierarchical managerialist capitalism requires that lots of people have an external locus of control - that they do as they're told; the person who tries to take control of their own life will soon be sacked from the call centre or assembly line.And schools subtly indoctrinate people into this mindset. Capitalism thus requires, and produces, many people for whom there is, psychologically, a conflict between happiness and freedom.

Secondly, remember how surveyors ask about happiness. They don't ask: "are you having fun?". Instead they ask several questions (pdf), two of which are: "Overall, how satisfied are you with your life nowadays?" and "Overall, to what extent do you feel the things you do in your life are worthwhile?" I strongly suspect that people who pursue professional or sporting excellence or who fight injustice - to use Norm and Phillip's examples - would give high scores on these questions: Norm and Phillip give no evidence to the contrary.

But how can I reconcile this suspicion with the evidence I've cited for a conflict between freedom and happiness? Simple. There's a conflict when people use freedom to choose what Edward Skidelsky calls "baubles and gadgets" or what MacIntyre calls external goods such as money, but not so much when they choose to pursue "internal goods" such as excellence.But capitalism requires that people pursue the former.

So, here's my theory. There's a conflict between freedom and happiness for capitalist people - consumers who do as they are told at work - but not for (market) socialist people, who are empowered to take control of their own lives.

Institutions shape culture. And capitalist institution give us a culture in which freedom and happiness conflict.

Comments

[Christopher Snowdon]

"There's a conflict when people use freedom to choose what Edward Skidelsky calls "baubles and gadgets" or what MacIntyre calls external goods such as money, but not so much when they choose to pursue "internal goods" such as excellence. But capitalism requires that people pursue the former."

Capitalism - which is the free exchange of goods and labour - does not require people to prioritise anything. People are quite free to pursue excellence and/or reject materialism, and many do.

There is also not as much as a conflict between economic freedom and happiness as you suggest. On the contrary, there is ample evidence that people are happier in free market economies. Will Wilkinson gives a good overview in this document: http://www.cato.org/pubs/pas/pa590.pdf

[P]

Phenomenal post. I'm going to grab a coffee and ponder - thanks for making my Sunday more interesting!

[chris]

@ Christopher - capitalism isn't a "free" exchange of labour, except in the formal sense. In a world of inadequate welfare, most people are compelled by to work by the threat of poverty.
I agree that market economies are associated with greater happiness. My point is that a market socialist economy (ie workers control plus citizens income) might promote happiness more than does a capitalist market economy.

[Keith]

Do these questions about happyness include "Does the huge cuts to housing benefit and the return of the poll tax ie cuts to council tax benefit make you happy? Or even ecststic?" If not why not? Will the future questions include "does the Cabinet of millionares kicking you in the balls cheer you up these days?"

[rogerh]

Well, market socialists need to eat, be housed and send their kids to school. Some can live on-the-social, others will need a nice job on the Grauniad to pay for a home in Hampstead and the ability to choose to holiday in a tent. Those on the social don't get much choice and on the average their family will be stuck in a spiral of always living on the social - no choice - no happiness unless they are happy with very constrained horizons.

I reckon there is a point of inflection on the happiness/money graph which may slide up and down according to one's socio-political view - but below the inflection point both socialists and capitalists will be unhappy.

[Luis Enrique]

I'm sure things like workplace democracy could increase the control people feel over their own lives, but the will of the majority or decisions of elected representatives are still an external locus of control. I don't know what you have in mind that an assembly line worker might be fired for, "taking control of their own lives" but I don't see that assembly line workers under alternative forms of ownership are exactly going to be allowed to come and go as they please. There will be rules, and you only have to take a moderately sceptical view of the likely reality of workplace democracy to see its tyrannical potential - go read Ursula Le Guin's depiction of a workers anarcho-syndicalist state in The Dispossessed.

Meanwhile I fucking hate the elitism underneath sneering at people and the baubles and gadgets, or the idea that people who "live by the rules" and who care about thinks like having a nice house etc. are somehow obedient capitalist drones who haven't "taken control of their own lives". I think it's very ugly snobbery.

[Farmer Jack]

For a country where citizens' degree of freedom is dynamic, it is plausible that the relationship between freedom and happiness will be non-linear.

The effect of greater freedom, especially for women (or members of groups previously denied a significant scope of self-determination), will be to shift the locus of control inwards. It's likely, further, that perceptions of where this locus lies will change more rapidly than the opportunities genuinely available to e.g. women, because of residual features in people's 'mentalities' concerning questions of how free individuals should be e.g. over the division of responsibilities in marriage or childcare or the care of the elderly.

Women may feel a little happier collectively than before, because of increased opportunities as these tend to happiness, but this will be outweighed by 1) by the proportionately greater sense that they are responsible for their own unhappiness; and 2) by the loss of compensatory features that attached to earlier forms of 'bondage' e.g. satisfaction in the home, a privileged relation to children etc.

However, as freedom becomes entrenched, it may be that groups like women will be increasingly able to take advantage of their options (that 'reality', in the sense of mentalities, not just of law, will catch up with perception) and that they will become happier.