The Pursuit of Happiness
Without getting into whether the time, money, and expense of the project are justified, the World Values Survey results were just released and indicate WE are pretty happy… 16th out of 80 countries… and are happier now than 25 years ago. According to the director of the study:
“The country is not only prosperous; it ranks relatively high in gender equality, tolerance of ethnic and social diversity and has high levels of political freedom.”
But then makes this observation:
Interestingly, countries whose respondents reported high levels of happiness were much likelier to be democracies than were countries that rank lower in terms of their citizens’ happiness.
Really? People in FREE countries are more likely to be happy? WOW!! Imagine that!
And the spokesperson goes on to say:
“Ultimately, the most important determinant of happiness is the extent to which people have free choice in how to live their lives.”
I totally agree. This supports my advocacy of a smaller, less intrusive government.
