New Study Finds Big Government Makes People Happy, "Free Markets" Don't

[applegrove]

New Study Finds Big Government Makes People Happy, "Free Markets" Don't

http://foreffectivegov.org/blog/new-study-finds-big-government-makes-people-happy-free-markets-dont

"SNIP.................


The paper is entitled “Assessing the Impact of the Size and Scope of Government on Human Well-Being,” and it begins by asking a simple yet compelling question: “Does more government enhance human happiness?” The authors say “we found what we believe to be conclusive evidence that indeed it does.“

Flavin and his co-authors make clear that they are not engaging in an ideological debate. Instead they examined global survey data involving 50,000 people in 21 countries, conducted over a period of years, to determine which form of government leads to greater individual happiness and life satisfaction.

The finding? “Leftist” policies make people happier.

What’s more, the correlation between left-leaning government and individual life satisfaction is strong. Being married and having a job are two factors that strongly influence personal happiness, as researchers know from previous studies. And yet, as Flavin told us, “The effects of living in a country where the government intervenes in the economy is larger than both those effects.”

That’s a striking finding. As Flavin explains in the interview, it also helps confirm the study’s conclusions.



...................SNIP"

[Louisiana1976]

1. America needs a socialist government.

[maced666]

23. Yea - because historically that has worked out so well in the world.

not

[Prophet 451]

32. Much of Europe would disagree

You're falling for the right's conflation of socialism and communism.

[branford]

36. There are no fully socialist governments in Europe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_socialist_states

There are some "social democratic" governments that are unquestionably capitalistic, just with a decent social welfare system, such as much of Scandinavia.

Moreover, historically, many of the countries that proclaimed themselves "socialist," were not exactly bastions of liberty, success and human rights.

What polls or studies are your relying upon to show majorities of citizens in European countries want actual socialism to dictate governmental and economic policies?

[Prophet 451]

38. I'm not

I was making a point about the previous poster's violent "SOCIALISM! ON NOES!!11" extremism. It's become an "accepted wisdom" factoid that socialism and communism are the same thing and anything even slightly resembling socialism instantly leads to tanks in the streets and gulags, treating socialism as some kind of all-consuming virus of evil rather than simply one way to run an economy.

So yeah, making a point about the knee-jerk socialism=communism=gulags reaction, not suggesting that nations would want to adopt true socialism.

[AgingAmerican]

40. Socialist countries are about the commons

But I doubt you even know what that means, so I will not get into it further with you.

[grahamhgreen]

60. There are I successful capitalist only countries, actually.

[demigoddess]

44. all the rich folk seem to like traveling in Europe

with all the nice things to see and visit, all the clean streets, good transportation, etc etc. But for some crazy reason they don't want those things over here?????

[Prophet 451]

45. FUD

The PtB have convinced the plebs that socialism, social democracy and communism are A) all the same thing and B) that they're like a virus, the second you accept even the tiniest part of anything that even vaguely resembles something in the same zipcode as socialism, the nation instantly turns into 1955 Moscow and everyone's off to the gulags.

[daschess1987]

55. Exactly!

Bernie Sanders speaks for me.

[AgingAmerican]

39. Indeed it has

Most of western Europe heavily leans socialist.

[gratuitous]

2. If you listen closely

You can hear the sound of the shovels looking to bury this study in the deepest, darkest hole "some people" can dig.

[deafskeptic]

5. I wonder if those diggers are minions of the Koch brothers. n/t

[gratuitous]

6. In which case . . .

They're probably being paid $2.15 an hour while their bosses holler at them for being overpaid.

[riversedge]

31. +1

[Prophet 451]

33. and there will be a Bill'O hit piece on it

It's so utterly predictable.

[ZombieHorde]

3. I'm not surprised. nt

[tecelote]

58. People like a government of the people and for the people.

Our government isn't perfect but at least it is accountable to us.

Business is only accountable to the people that demand profit... usually at any cost.

[valerief]

4. I guess they didn't limit their study to the .01%. nt

[devils chaplain]

7. A cooperative life is more pleasant than a cutthroat one. n/t

[Dirty Socialist]

14. Excellent Point!

Primitive peoples have more cooperative societies, and primitive people have a firmer grasp of what humanity is all about, IMO.

[woo me with science]

21. +100000

I often wonder how even the very basic health statistics in this country would improve if we immediately eliminated the extreme stress of millions of Americans about debt and meeting basic needs of shelter and food for their families. I wonder how much domestic and societal violence would stop, too.

I also have fantasized about taking all the money we pour into health insurance every month and saving it up instead for one very lengthy, uninterrupted, entirely stress-free yearly vacation in some wonderful climate with everything taken care of for us. Maybe a month or three.

I wonder if overall health would improve just from the break from stress. Doctors actually used to prescribe that sort of thing.

[maced666]

24. 1-3 months a year with 'all needs taken care of'?!

Nice socializing - who is the planned slave labor force taking care of all your needs/bills/food/ for three months a year in your wonderful climate location?! LOL
Omg socialists, at least they vote for Democratic candidates.

[woo me with science]

25. LOL.

Calm down. That's a private fantasy and unable to happen anytime soon. No need to tremble so ostentatiously at the "S" word!

Were you able to grasp the larger point, though?

[BuelahWitch]

28. He's already paid for them with the money he saved from health insurance

As for the "slave labor," why would you call putting money into a local economy slave labor?
Money is like manure, it only works if you spread it around. Leave it sitting in one spot and it stinks and collects flies.

[woo me with science]

29. Thanks. Your response was better than mine.

I was distracted by all the panic over the "S" word.

[BuelahWitch]

30. I could totally see where you were coming from

Money in the hands of the people is good for business. People who go apoplectic over any type of handouts don't seem to understand this. There will always be people who want to ply their craft, or who want to earn more money, and so will go to work. But there should be a safety net for those of us who can't work for one reason or another. A GOOD safety net, not sham where you have to fight your way to get housing or medical assistance.
Once our needs are met, we can contribute to the economy too. Maybe not in the way that someone making big money can, but we will help keep things moving.

[woo me with science]

43. Amen. Actually, I think there would be an explosion of creativity and innovation in this country

if we had a guaranteed living income. How many people do you imagine are never able to go to school or develop their real talents or follow a dream, because they get trapped trying to find or keep a drudge/make-work job, any job, in the corporate hamster wheel, just trying to survive? One third of Americans risk homelessness by missing a single paycheck.

People complain that Americans are stupid and lazy, but our whole system is set up so that most are toiling all day as corporate drones and coming home at the end of the day too broke and exhausted to do anything except turn on the boob tube and get a dose of corporate propaganda.

I'm always reminded of those heart-stirring photos people post here all the time, of how shelter animals are transformed from hopeless, dull, pathetic creatures into vibrant, busy family members, just by ensuring they have their basic needs met. Yet we are supposed to believe that the same dynamic doesn't apply to human beings.

If not a guaranteed living income, then at least a living wage, and restructuring of the system to keep everyone out of poverty. The truth is that 21st century technology and productivity don't REQUIRE a 40-hour work week anymore. We have enough wealth to give everyone freedom from fear and a life beyond constantly scraping and competing to survive. I think you would see tremendous new creativity and innovation. It would take breaking the monopoly on profit and power, though, and the corporations and CEO's prefer it the way it is.

*

*

*

*

Guaranteed living income time.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=921052

A simple guarantee that no American will be in poverty. End the fear and the institutionalized skimming off the top of social programs by vultures.

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/10/rethinking-the-idea-of-a-basic-income-for-all/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/14/opinion/wheeler-minimum-income/

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/02/17/guaranteed_basic_income_the_real_alternative_to_the_minimum_wage.html

[AgingAmerican]

51. This is exactly what is done in Nordic Social Democracys

The effect? It solved their unemployment problems because businesses hire more workers to fill in the gaps.

[daredtowork]

8. But Big Government is "Dependency"

We must be freed from the chains of Dependency!

We must be freed from the chains of happiness!

The cost of freedom is happiness!

Happiness is slavery!

Unhappiness is freedom!

Unhappiness rocks!

[Curmudgeoness]

13. And war is peace,

freedom is slavery

and ignorance is strength.

Orwell's "1984", it wasn't supposed to be an instruction manual.

[woo me with science]

50. Someone sure took it that way.

What gets me is the disconnect in the propaganda between what the "workers" need to thrive, versus the "job creators."

Anxiety and desperation about obtaining basic needs is good for workers, because it gives them motivation! If you guarantee them food and shelter, they'll just become dependent.

Yet we are constantly lectured that raising taxes on corporations will make the job creators "insecure, which we all know would be very bad for the economy!

[Curmudgeoness]

63. But, but, but....

only job creators matter, dontcha know. Workers don't contribute anything to the economy.

Oh, that's not right, is it? Last I heard, consumerism (workers) are 70% of our economy. Go figure.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

9. Ahem!!!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1022162

[adirondacker]

10. Exactly why we need a Bernie Sanders presidency. nt

[demigoddess]

46. Bernie Sanders presidency would only do all the good

if he doesn't have a republican Congress. What is he going to get through that Obama couldn't?? The Congress would still stall and procrastinate like heck.

[adirondacker]

49. "What is he going to get through that Obama couldn't?" A public conversation and debate.

I think the country is ready and way past due.

[AgingAmerican]

52. I doubt Bernie

Would get duped into disastrous deals with the GOP, like the sequester, which was always obviously a GOP wet dream package.

[demigoddess]

67. sometimes that is what you get when you elect

a president with not a lot of legislative background. National politics is a lot rougher than local and things have gotten really bad since Reagan republicans decided to take over the government completely and eliminate democrats from the face of the earth.

[LiberalLovinLug]

62. I doubt a Democratic Congress would be much better for him

The Third Way is now entrenched. No going back to the grassroots base now. We all had a glimmer of hope during the last Presidential run with Obama raising more money with small donors using social media than his GOP foes, that he would actually be brave enough to stand up to the oligarchs. But the fact that he didn't, which started with his refusal to even invite doctors and nurses for Single Payer to the table, no jail time for any of the corporate Wall Street thieves, and the whole "looking forward" meme kinda puts he last nail in the coffin for real progressive change in the US for a long time to come.

[MontyPow]

11. Well, it's certainly funny that when faces with an Ebola "crisis"

We demand big gubmint czars and flight bans rather than state measures and free market solutions.

[bread_and_roses]

12. What a shocker!

Not.

Thanks for posting - I probably wouldn't have seen this.

[Helen Borg]

15. As long as big govt is benign...

But big market is like huge govt, in the sense that it imposes specific modes of behavior on everybody!

[Dirty Socialist]

16. No working people left behind

Not shafted by greedy corporations or bullied by despotic bosses.

[ReRe]

17. K&R

Reagan lovers, led by Grover Norquist, need to read this and weep.

[johnnyreb]

18. You Americans are too incompetent to run things yourselves!

You need crony Clem to sell those services back to you at a nice markup.

[quaker bill]

19. WE often forget

That people invented government. They invented it because they wanted it.

The free market was fine with allowing the elderly starve or scrape by in desperate poverty, therefore the people invented social security. The free market was fine with the occasional river catching fire, therefore the people supported environmental regulation. The free market was fine working children long hours in dangerous jobs 7 days a week, therefore the people supported fair labor standards... The list goes on and on and covers nearly all if not all of it.

The people spent a lot of time and money inventing government because they wanted it. It should be no surprise that they are happier when it works.

[colsohlibgal]

20. The Truth They Refuse To Acknowledge

I say we give the crazy right 2/3 of Montana and see how they do with no taxes - and at some point no fire, police, roads, sewers, water lines, etc.

[maced666]

22. Patrick Flavin, Baylor? Okay.....

His background screams 'I have a dog in this hunt'
Period.
Study may be 100% true - and it probably is, it probably is.

But, it also is 100% in line with Flavin's political views.
You have to see both sides because everyone else will -

[woo me with science]

26. Aw, c'mon now...

I *know* you have more empathy than that for people who have difficulty seeing "both sides" of things.

After all, my mere mention above of a private fantasy about vacations catapulted you into horror and distress over "Socialism"!!!!11!1

[woo me with science]

27. K&R

[Prophet 451]

34. The coming response is predictable

First, there will be the accusations of partisanship (a poster in this thread has already started them) with the assumption that any finding that agrees with the researcher can't possibly be true. Then, if that doesn't work, the pundits will start attacking him, screaming how he's a leftist (Rush and Bill'O are probably writing scripts already). Then the public will be glowjobbed that teh USA is already the free-est, best-est country on earth or in history and this is just the product of an evil man who wants to ruin 'Murica.

And then the plebs will forget all about it and go back to being placated by Honey Boo Boo because they've had a very long day, working harder for less, and infantile pablum and triumphalism is all they have the energy to process. And they'll go in to work for a boss that considers his employees gosh-darn lucky to have the opportunity to sell him their labour at the lowest price he can get away with. And the plebs will pat each other on the back and remind themselves that America is the country of god and could never possibly be improved by anything ever.

Let's be honest, the conservative's have won, for the time being at least. They've got themselves a minority veto in Congress (which they'll do away with the very second they're in the majority), a compliant media to frame everything in their terms (and if you control today's omnipresent media, you control what the people think) and an obedient SCOTUS majority to rule "unconstitutional" any law they don't like. They've won, for the time being. All you can do is try and limit the damage. Until the demographics shift completely kills the GOP in about fifteen years anyway.

[The2ndWheel]

35. I'm sure it's more complicated than that

But what, exactly, is “big government”? In the interview, Flavin reviewed the four measures used in the study:

The first was the size of government as a percentage of GDP. The second was the relative size of social welfare expenditures – with higher expenditures signifying a “larger government.” The third was the “generosity of the welfare state” in terms of benefits, and the fourth was government intervention in the labor market economy.

If you isolate any aspect of something, you can get people to agree or disagree more easily than if you have to consider a larger picture. Big government won't just affect aspects of life that you want it to, in the way that you want it to. It wouldn't be big if it only did that. Well, big, and democratic anyway.

From the measures used in the study, it seems like things were kept on a smaller scale(only asking about 4 of who knows how many possible issues). Which is kind of funny, when considering the topic of the question.

[mb999]

37. "free markets" is a myth

You need government regulations to keep the market from becoming distorted.

[KansDem]

59. If anything, "free markets" disappeared in 2008

The banker/broker bailout ended any quaint notion of "free markets."

[annabanana]

65. a real "free market" would be free labor as well as free capital...

Labor is not free to do much of anything any more...

[laundry_queen]

66. Yep. Free markets

always trend towards monopoly without regulations.

[taught_me_patience]

41. People also want money for nothing and chicks for free

The problem with big government is that nobody wants to pay for it.

[world wide wally]

42. The RW has the American people so brainwashed, it may be beyond repair

There are 2 separate issues at play and Americans seem unable to distinguish them from one another.
When Republicans talk about ."big government", they mean that they want no control over corporate matters or regulation of any kind over banking, oil exploration and extraction, anything that makes them wealthier at any cost to average people.
Then they turn around and support the most intrusive forms of big gov like telling women what they can and cannot do with their bodies. Restricting voter rights as much as possible. Spying on every Neo the name of fighting terrorism. Providing Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, unemployment "insurance" and anything else that may benefit the average American.

This is all packaged up as "big government" and sold like Christmas crap on TV so that average Americans end up supporting deregulation of "big business".
Because they think they are rebels opposing gun control or helmet laws.

[Prophet 451]

48. I think it's too far gone for repair, for now at least.

Let's be honest, the conservative's have won, for the time being at least. They've got themselves a minority veto in Congress (which they'll do away with the very second they're in the majority), a compliant media to frame everything in their terms and an obedient SCOTUS majority to rule "unconstitutional" any law they don't like. They've won, for the time being. All you can do is try and limit the damage. Until the demographics shift completely kills the GOP in about fifteen years anyway.

[leftstreet]

47. DURec

[jwirr]

53. Now if we just started voting like that.

[Initech]

54. Reagan ruined it when he made government the enemy.

And we haven't been the same since. B

[Cleita]

56. People replying to this seem to have a confusion about economic

systems and governance systems. Communism as an economic system works quite well in kibbutzes in Israel and monasteries in religious orders. The trouble with communist governments like the Soviet Union, China and No. Korea is that the economic system became ruled by totalitarian dictatorships. Now China has become a capitalistic system that is still a totalitarian dictatorship. Capitalistic systems like ours can function under a democracy or a totalitarian regime. However, when they merge with government they tend toward facism and eventually a military industrial government with the fig leaf of democracy like ours in the USA has become.

This is why we need socialistic democracies such as many European countries have. Regulated capitalism is allowed, however, it's not allowed to take over the government. The government on the other hand as a democracy or in theory run by the people takes care of the commons and the safety nets for it's citizens, but does not make stuff like communist governments do. The private commercial sector and religious sector is separate from the government whose role is to take care of the people. The country who comes closest to this balancing act is Iceland. Just MHO.

[pansypoo53219]

57. i have been to denmark. they are VERY happy people. it was VERY clean + i did not hear a siren EVER.

or a sheriff car on the highway.

[pampango]

61. "...social democratic policies do contribute to a world in which there is greater life satisfaction"

Not exactly a news flash to any of us, but an interesting finding from this study.

[Avalux]

64. Well DUH!!! When a person doesn't need to worry about basic needs,

they have 'room' to spend their time in pursuits that delight them. Instead of constantly worrying if they'll be able to eat or have shelter.

Imagine that - we are taught that being able to make choices and 'do everything on our own' without assistance is freedom. It's actually a life of slavery.