Much noise has been made in the conservative blogosphere about the difference between equality of opportunity and equality of outcome, and the difference between the pursuit of happiness and the providing of happiness. The key point, one that should be obvious, is that the former in both cases is freedom of activity and unrestricted effort and the latter in both cases is the bestowing or imposing of an end state. The role of government, the entity relevant to these principles, differs drastically in their regard. In the case of equality of opportunity and the pursuit of happiness, government should strive to remove obstacles and refrain from adding its own, and in removal, it must take care to do so for all its charges, because favoritism and bias remove obstacles for some by creating them for others. In the case of equality of outcome and the providing of happiness, government must necessarily degrade the outcome some have achieved and infringe on the happiness some have achieved in order to provide to others. Many words have been spoken and written on this fundamental dissonance regarding the role of government, and it should come as no surprise that those with libertarian tendencies prefer the former and those with statist tendencies prefer the latter.
There is an often-overlooked question in the grand debate on happiness, the practical meaning of “happiness.” Therein lies a problem for the statist, “provision of happiness and equality of outcome” crowd. The happiness I pursue is often different than the happiness you pursue, is often different than the happiness he pursues, and is often different than the happiness she pursues. A striving artist likely has very different life goals than an up-and-coming corporate attorney, and they both likely have very different life goals from a stay-at-home parent of five children. A health-focused marathon runner embraces a very different form of happiness than someone whose greatest thrill is dining at the next hot new restaurant or downing a six pack of beer every night. A retiree spending his golden years fly fishing the Beaver Kill in upstate New York has a very different idea of happiness than a Miami club kid who goes out dancing every night.
For each of us, being free to pursue happiness lets us set whatever goals we want, and change them as we want, whenever we want, to whatever other goals we want. The choices one of us might make in the pursuit of happiness might horrify others. An artist might be perfectly happy working a low level desk job or doing freelance work, because it provides a basic level of sustenance and plenty of free time to pursue his art. He may choose a simple, low cost life in a small town of like-minded souls, and find true happiness thus. Someone with a passion for fashion may thrive in the heart of New York City, and feel she’d rather eat hot gravel than live the artist’s lifestyle. Who is to say which is more correct? Who can decide that one way is better than the other? Obviously, a society that prioritizes removing obstacles to the pursuit of happiness need not make any such decisions. The problem arises when a statist government looks to provide to people their happiness goals.
While “wanting it all” can be a motivating life mantra, in reality our lives are all about managing scarcity and making choices. There are only so many hours in a day, and we have only so many years in the world. Anything we do involves sacrificing time and resources that might be devoted to something else. There’s always an opportunity cost, and we make trade-off decisions constantly. Cronuts are delicious, but they’re bad for me and I have to spend 2 hours on line to get one. Do I go for it or do I go to the gym instead? The new job I just got offered pays 15% more than my current one, but adds an hour to my daily commute. Do I sacrifice the time for the extra money? I have some vacation time available and some money saved up. Do I spend several thousand dollars on a Caribbean vacation, or do I do something more low key and put the money into my retirement fund?
These choices, choices all of us make, can and do affect our lives in measurable ways. Government likes measurable things. If something can be measured, it’s easier to regulate or meddle with. Our income levels, our life expectancies, our weight, various aspects of our health, the sizes and values of our homes, our retirement savings – all are quantifiable on a gross scale, and all are both elements in and outcomes of our pursuits of happiness. And they vary – widely. They can also trend in the aggregate, and when some look at the direction of a trend and consider it unfavorable, they feel justified in acting.
Much is made of Americans’ life expectancy when compared to that in other industrialized nations. It’s often held up as proof that America’s health care system isn’t as good as that in those other countries. Yet all the best doctors, hospitals and medical science in the world cannot make up for lifestyle choices that work contrary to longevity. If people would rather eat fried chicken and barbecue than broccoli and oatmeal, and if they’d rather drink a six pack than have one, their life expectancies in the aggregate will suffer. Sure, people would like to eat tasty but unhealthy food in excess, drink without limits, never exercise and still have a David Beckham or Gisele Bundchen body, but that’s outside the realm of reality, and it shouldn’t even enter into the conversation. Yet many who criticize America’s health care system discount lifestyle choices when they use life expectancies of other nations as proof of its inadequacy. Amusingly, they’ll turn right around and criticize lifestyle choices when they shift into nanny mode, claiming that people’s “poor” choices authorizes the government’s intervention into their lives.
Much is also made of income inequality, especially by redistributionists and those who declare that American society is increasingly dividing into the haves and the have nots. Yet inequality, insofar as it doesn’t involve rent-seeking (more on that in a moment), is very much a function of the variation in individuals’ pursuit of happiness. The effect of disparate attitudes towards work and wealth is rarely given the consideration it deserves. Instead, discussion, factual and fabricated, tends to focus on how the successful exploit the system (aka the government) to enrich themselves and beggar those around them. This certainly does happen – rent-seeking is inevitable when government is big – but many who decry it don’t impose the obvious answer (stop acceding to the demands of rent seekers). Instead, they look to punish all who are successful in order to compensate for the subset who have enriched themselves by using government against others.
There is also the perverse effect of the growing welfare state on income inequality. If people are coddled, if they are provided with enough lucre to sustain their lives at a certain level without needing to devote any effort to working, it should come as no surprise that some will settle comfortably into that state. There is always a degree of uncertainty when it comes to jobs and work, and in many that uncertainty can motivate the pursuit of security. Security can be found in working more in order to save for a rainy day, in developing better job skills so that one becomes more valuable or marketable, “climbing the ladder” and so forth. If the state takes away that uncertainty, a motivation to work harder is diminished. People on the dole can grow complacent and entitled, not feeling any need to work for a more secure future, and thus not growing their income while others do. Without considering a range of relevant factors, income equality is a lousy metric. Yet, because it’s an easy metric, and because “equality” is a Good Word, it becomes a rallying cry. And, the solution preferred by those who are drawn to that cry is one that interferes with many people’s pursuits of happiness.
The proper role of government, a role noted in the Declaration of Independence, is to secure the rights of individuals. Among these rights is the right to pursue happiness, and inherent in that right is the right to choose for one’s self whence one finds happiness. If the State decides the happiness I pursue is the wrong sort of happiness, or is less worthy than the happiness someone else pursues, or isn’t as deserving of protection as a happiness the State decides I should pursue, then the State is failing in its fundamental role as a defender of liberty. There is no way, none whatsoever, to reconcile the state’s involvement in the achievement of happiness with its role in defending its pursuit.
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