15

THE MAGIC TRIANGLE

WE MAY BE looking for happiness, but we’re not finding it. Although incomes have increased enormously in the last fifty years, the percentage of people describing themselves as happy is no higher today than it was half a century ago.1 Compared to then, life now offers us much more. What were once luxuries can be afforded by almost everyone. Salmon and champagne are sold at Wal-Mart, and for the price of a suit you can fly to Tahiti. For most of us. leisure time is no longer a scarce resource, and the ways of spending it are limitless. If you want to learn to throw a pot, speak Chinese, or give erotic massages, you can enroll in an adult education class that will teach you just that. Have you long dreamt of piloting a plane? You can make it happen. In the United States (as in all developed countries) the good life has become the “average” life. But this doesn’t seem to have done much for well-being. Bertolt Brecht described this dilemma in his Threepenny Opera:

Aye, race for happiness

But don’t you race too fast.

When all start chasing happiness

Happiness comes in last.2

POLITICS AT A DEAD END

As far as life satisfaction goes, the Americans, whose Declaration of Independence gave them the right to strive for happiness, rank toward the top of the mid-range for industrialized countries. The Swiss, Dutch, and Scandinavians score as the happiest, while the Spanish bring up the rear.

It doesn’t matter if we look at studies comparing different countries or those showing trends over time—they all point in the same direction: levels of satisfaction in the industrialized countries haven’t begun to keep pace with the standard of living. There’s a world of difference between well-being and being well-off. If, as the philosophers of the Enlightenment demanded, it’s government’s responsibility to increase the happiness of its citizens, the Western politicians of the last decades have all failed. According to Francis Hutcheson’s Examination of Good and Evil (1726), government’s goal should be “the greatest happiness of the greatest number.” This idea is at the root of the Declaration of Independence, as well as the premise of European democrats.

But in real life, governments aim instead to increase economic productivity above all—and thus the standard of living of their citizens. Only if greater prosperity led to greater happiness would it serve the happiness of the largest possible part of the population. As statistics show, in industrialized countries this is apparently not the case.3 If the purpose of human and mechanized labor is to produce happiness, our economic system with its huge creation of wealth is grotesquely inefficient.

THE HAPPINESS OF NATIONS

Measuring people’s satisfaction with a “happiness index,” we see three different clusters. Citizens of countries that have recently undergone a profound change or a major crisis are the least satisfied, because they often live in uncertainty and insecurity. Well-being is much higher in stable, developing countries. In this cluster, the happiness index climbs with income—from impoverished Bangladesh to Puerto Rico (almost ten times as wealthy), which is on the threshold of the industrialized countries. Finally, in the most developed countries, the material needs of most people are generally satisfied. Here, greater prosperity no longer brings additional well-being. Although the West Germans are almost a third richer than the Irish, they’re less happy. These data are from the late 1990s, and the recent events in the German Democratic Republic are refiected in the figure for East Germany. (Ingelhart and Klingemann, 2000)

It’s another situation in developing countries, where every added dollar can make a real difference, and the curve of satisfaction climbs steeply from poor countries like the Republic of Moldova to the top earners among the threshold countries like South Korea.4

The reasons are obvious: where essentials are lacking, happiness is rare. A peasant in Nepal whose land yields just enough rice for his family is under constant stress. Will next year’s harvest be enough? Will the roof of his hut keep the rain out for another season? Is his coughing child seriously ill? Even a modest increase improves the life of this family significantly, making a doctor’s visit and perhaps an education for the children affordable.5

THE PROMISED LAND, WHERE PEPPER GROWS

Even in the poorest regions of the world, economic power is only one of several factors that determine happiness. In relation to their meager wealth, some countries have managed to achieve a very high level of well-being for their citizens.

Among them is Kerala, a state in India’s torrid south where thirty-three million people live in a small space densely planted with coconut palms, bananas, and spice plants. In spite of bountiful harvests, the Keralites—almost all subsistence farmers or fishermen—earn on average less than forty euros a month.

And yet Kerala is in many ways highly developed. While half the men and even more of the women in other Indian states are illiterate, in Kerala almost everyone can read and write. Most have even attended secondary school. Kerala has a thousand-year tradition of martial arts, ayurvedic medicine, and dance theater. There are excellent films in the Malayalam language. And while the population in many areas of the third world has to labor for starvation wages in the fields of wealthy landowners, almost every peasant family in Kerala owns land from which it lives.

People born in Kerala today have a good chance of reaching old age. The average life expectancy is seventy-four—a sensational figure for such a poor region. The Brazilians, for example, who are about six times wealthier, live on average to age sixty-six. Even African Americans—relatively speaking, an almost immeasurably wealthier population—have a life expectancy that is lower than Kerala’s.6

BODIES, SENSORS OF HAPPINESS

What does life expectancy say about happiness? Health contributes to positive feelings, and, conversely, the absence of anger and stress is good for one’s health.

The people of Kerala owe their longevity to the excellent medical care and hygiene that’s available to them. Unlike many developing countries, Kerala invests in schools and hospitals rather than in steel plants and airports. But its inhabitants also owe their physical well-being to having easier lives than other Indians. With their own land, a secure income, and a functioning village community, people look with more confidence to the future and suffer less stress than the inhabitants of teeming slums.

The interaction between body and mind is even more important as a population becomes better educated and is served by more doctors. Infections can be fatal in less developed areas, but as soon as medical care and hygiene improve, deaths from diseases like tuberculosis, dysentery, and cholera decrease markedly, and people live to old age. But the higher the life expectancy, the more people die of stress-related illnesses—heart attacks and strokes, for example, which are the main causes of death in industrialized countries.7

That there’s a direct correlation between a sense of emotional well-being—and thus the absence of stress—and life expectancy has been shown by many studies. It’s lifestyle, more than genetics, environment, and medical care, that determines how long a person is likely to live. In fact, its influence is stronger than all these other factors together!8 The body is a sensor of happiness.

THE PARADOX OF MONEY AND HAPPINESS

Life satisfaction and life expectancy go hand in hand with social justice. In both regards, Kerala, poor as it is, is a leader among developing regions. Where the split between haves and have-nots is greater, as in Brazil, people die younger—even though a poor Brazilian earns significantly more money than someone in Kerala’s middle class.

That longevity is related not to absolute wealth but to its equal distribution can also be observed in industrialized countries. Where people enjoy the smallest income spread, as in Sweden and Japan, they live the longest, although both countries have completely different social and health systems. On the other hand, greater social inequality is statistically correlated with lower life expectancy.

Surely it’s no coincidence that in international comparisons those citizens are most satisfied who enjoy the most equitable income distribution. In Scandinavia, in the Netherlands, and even in Switzerland the discrepancy between rich and poor is much less than in Germany or, for example, in Italy.9

The comparison among different states in the United States is particularly striking. Although the United States has excellent hospitals in general, average life expectancy in individual states varies by as much as four years. People can expect to reach seventy-seven in North Dakota, but only seventy-three in Louisiana. Neither income, nor the origin of the population, nor cigarette consumption can explain these differences. Further, there’s almost no difference in the number of deaths caused by cancer and other diseases with a genetic component.10 Rather, the explanation lies in the income differentials between rich and poor, which is almost 50 percent greater in Louisiana than in North Dakota.11 Citizens of states with large gaps in income levels die at a younger age, primarily because of the stress caused by stark social contrasts.12

We see, then, that the relationship between money and happiness is complex. Above a certain income level, the increase in satisfaction brought by wealth is minimal, but the distribution of wealth in a society is of enormous significance.

In many parts of the world, income differentials have grown over the past three decades,13 most dramatically in Eastern Europe. The statistics from Russia and Lithuania are the worst of all. There the mortality rate (the number of deaths per 1,000 people) has increased by a third since 1989, and life expectancy for men is now less than sixty. In Hungary, which made the transition to capitalism early on, the mortality rate climbed 20 percent from 1970 to 1990, although income increased threefold during these same years! But the prosperity benefited only a few, while most Hungarians own no more today than they did in 1970.14

According to the figures of the U.S. Census Bureau, the gap in incomes in the U.S. has grown hugely in the past two decades. In 1979 the 5 percent top-earning American households were on average eleven times wealthier than the poorest 20 percent. By 2000 the difference had increased to a factor of nineteen—almost doubling the gap.

According to conservatives, it hurts no one when the rich become richer, as long as those who are less wealthy don’t become poorer. If the size of one’s bank account is all that matters, this is true. But if you look at the consequences for well-being and health, it’s false. When social discrepancies grow, everyone loses, rich as well as poor.

APULIA IN AMERICA

The trend toward an increasing disparity in income was anticipated in the first half of the twentieth century by the citizens of Roseto, a small town in eastern Pennsylvania. In the first half of the twentieth century, they seemed blessed with virtual immunity against diseases of the heart and circulatory system, the most common cause of death in developed countries. No one died of such illnesses before reaching old age, and men older than sixty-five had a mortality rate exactly half that of the American average. Although Roseto’s inhabitants were all of Italian descent, they could hardly attribute their health to the much-vaunted Mediterranean diet. In fact, the Roseto “lifestyle” was actually very unhealthy. Its citizens smoked and worked hard, and, since olive oil wasn’t available in the United States in those days, in Roseto the traditionally fatty southern Italian cuisine was cooked in lard. Nor were there any genetic peculiarities to explain the robust constitution of Roseto’s citizens.

What did differentiate these people from average Americans was their social cohesion. The town consisted of the descendants of a small number of clans, who had all emigrated from Apulia at the same time and remained inseparable in the New World, where they preserved all the rituals of a small Italian town. People met for their evening walks, gathered for games in one of the many clubs, and celebrated in processions and church festivals. Since envy is divisive, the display of wealth was frowned upon. Although many families had attained some measure of prosperity, it was impossible to distinguish rich from poor—whether by clothing, cars, or housing. Old people lived with their children, three generations under one roof. Crime didn’t exist.

But as Roseto became like the rest of America, everything changed. People grew more prosperous, and the community fell apart. After 1970, many young people left the town to study, returning with ideas different from those of their parents. Some drove up in Cadillacs. They built big houses, dug swimming pools, and fenced in their gardens. People retreated into their four walls and savored their wealth. The more Roseto came to resemble a normal American small town, the more closely rates of illness and mortality approached the national average. As the close communal ties withered, so did their protective power.15

THE PROTECTIVE SHIELD OF SOLIDARITY

As long as their community was intact, the people of Roseto seem to have lived with less stress than other Americans. The cause was twofold. First, they felt no compulsion to outshine their neighbors. Second, those who were poorer and less successful didn’t have to fear for their social status. After all, what makes people unhappy isn’t having little but having less than others. It’s the sense of having less that can make people feel worthless. The people in Roseto were spared the experience of watching helplessly as others pulled ahead and left them forever in the dust.

Furthermore, everyone could rely unconditionally on family and neighbors. The support of the community was so strong that old age and bad luck lost their terror. Roseto’s citizens knew that they would never be helpless in the face of life’s inevitable ups and downs.

This sense of inner balance was reflected in the sensationally low rate of stress-related diseases of the heart and circulation. Cancer, on the other hand, which does not have psychological causes, occurred with the same frequency as elsewhere in the United States.16

It has been known for a long time that social solidarity makes difficult conditions more bearable. The union movement of the nineteenth century was based on this principle. What is new is the recognition that a well-functioning communal structure benefits even physical health. We have already discussed this in chapter 10 in connection with the value of friendship. People live better and longer when they are socially rooted. This connection between well-being, life expectancy, and social cohesion has been convincingly corroborated by many studies since the pioneering work of social scientists in Roseto.17

Members of a society can enter into workable relationships only when their lifestyles and interests are similar. If the social distinctions become too large, the communal net dissolves in a tug-of-war. Rich and poor live in different worlds, and neither strays into the territory of the other.

A positive example on a larger scale is provided by the Netherlands, whose inhabitants have had to deal for centuries with the constant threat of North Sea floods. They developed an egalitarian society in which even the queen rides a bicycle and is photographed in rubber boots on a dyke during a storm surge.18 To this day, the income gap in the Netherlands is relatively small and the level of life satisfaction correspondingly high.

ENGAGEMENT OUT OF SELF-INTEREST

The flood of research on the beneficial effects of solidarity is incompatible with the currently fashionable ideology of the entrepreneurial self. We’re supposed to lead our lives as if we were companies in the marketplace. Advice books urge their readers to imitate the techniques and rhetoric of business consultants. One of these books recommends that we all brand, “reengineer,” and benchmark ourselves against the best and the brightest. In the words of the New York entrepreneur and billionaire Ron Perelman, “Happiness is a positive cash flow.”19 Nothing could be further from the spirit of Roseto. All “management by vision” notwithstanding, the future of such strategies is not promising, for they load an almost inhumane burden on anyone who tries to live by them.

For most people, the retreat into private life means a self-inflicted rejection of happiness—and not only because they enjoy less a supportive and less congenial environment in their homes and neighborhoods. The greatest loss is the satisfaction that comes from the very activity of community involvement, as the English social psychologist Michael Argyle demonstrated in his study on free time. Most of the people he surveyed indicated that nothing could outweigh the pleasure that they derived from their work as volunteers. On a scale of enjoyment gauging the value of their free-time activity, only dancing was higher. What they especially enjoyed was getting to know like-minded people, seeing the results of their work, and gaining life experience.20 Whether among amateur actors, or in an environmental action group, getting involved is recommended not only for moral reasons but also out of simple self-interest.

A CIVIC SENSE RELIES ON TRUST

An unspectacular activity like singing in a chorus, for example, can accomplish much more than merely improving the singer’s mood. When the Harvard political scientist Robert Putman looked into differences in quality of government, he asked why some Italian provincial governments function wonderfully (like the northern region of Emilia-Romagna), while others are plagued by corruption, mismanagement, and chaos. He found one explanation in the contrasting social structures of the villages and towns. Where people liked to work together toward common goals, they were usually blessed with good government, no matter that the context—football clubs, PTAs, choral societies, and the like—was usually apolitical

Putnam argued that when people engage together freely, their interests converge. In a community with an active public life, it’s difficult to act in secret, and politicians, knowing that their misuse of power won’t be tolerated, are more honest from the get-go.

By contrast, weaker social ties make it easier for corruption to thrive. An individual feels helpless in the face of clans and old-boy networks. In order not to fall behind, everyone cheats as best they can—and those in power pocket more and more.21

In the long run, mismanagement and misrule can thrive only where there’s no opposition. A civic sense assumes trust, but the reverse is also true: the more people are willing to act on each other’s behalf, the easier it is to prevent the abuse of trust. Honest leaders and effective laws and institutions are important, but without a well-developed public life, their effectiveness is stymied. A civic sense is the foundation on which democracy rests.

Where there is a strong civic sense, the discrepancy in incomes is relatively small, and where social cohesion is weaker, the gap in wealth grows correspondingly. Putnam found that in the United States, states with a more equitable distribution of resources also enjoyed a stronger network of associations, civic and social action organizations, and clubs. Not only do more people vote, but they have more trust in one another—and a greater likelihood of reaching old age.22 Justice, civic sense, and life expectancy are all connected: where the social structure is intact, people live happier lives.

A LIFE IN SLOW MOTION

Mass unemployment, too, shatters social cohesion. Surveying life satisfaction in different regions, the Swiss scholar Bruno Frey came to the conclusion that unemployment has a negative effect on the well-being of all members of a society, including those who have jobs.23 At fault are the widespread fear of job loss and the absence of solidarity. Even those who are better positioned feel the effects of social rejection.

The suffering that the enforced lack of activity causes the unemployed is shown by a famous example from Austria. Marienthal was a thriving little town south of Vienna, until its largest employer, a textile factory, began to founder in 1929. After a struggle of several months, the factory shut down. It was a time of great economic hardship, when no one who had lost a job had any hope of finding another.

Thanks to unemployment insurance, no one was destitute. Nonetheless, the inactivity among the previously proud workers had a devastating effect, as was documented in detail by the Austrian social scientists Marie Jahoda and Paul Lazarsfeld.

Marienthal suffered an agonizing decline. Without any hope of turning things around by their own efforts, its citizens resigned themselves to their fate and showed all the symptoms of learned helplessness. After a year, the rich social life of the town was almost completely extinguished. The park that the workers had laid out went to seed, although the townspeople had more than enough time to care for it. But the unemployed could summon only enough energy to run their own small households. “I have no interest in going out any more,” complained one of them. Depressed, they didn’t even manage to use the extra time to read. The number of books checked out of the free public library declined by half. The number of newspaper subscriptions dropped even further. A previously active Socialist Party functionary said, “I used to read the worker’s paper until I knew it by heart. But now, though I’ve got more time, I just look at it a little, and then I throw it away.”

The unemployed of Marienthal lost their sense of time. In diaries that they kept at the request of the researchers, they recorded entries like the following: “4–5 pm: Fetched milk. 5–6 pm: Walked home from the park.” A stretch of a few hundred yards that would previously have taken five minutes, now took an hour! In order to better understand what was going on, Jahoda and Lazarsfeld positioned themselves at a window overlooking the main street and measured people’s pace as they walked by. It was less than three kilometers per hour. The unemployed were crawling by at a speed less than half that of a purposeful pedestrian. And the longer they were without a job, the more passive and flaccid they became.

ILLNESS AND INACTIVITY

Nineteen thirty isn’t 2006, and Marienthal isn’t Europe. The unemployed receive much better financial support now than they did then, and the economy isn’t even close to the kind of crisis that people went through in the 1930s. But the devastating consequences of inactivity are much as they were.

Many of those who suffer long-term unemployment have no realistic hope of ever finding work again, no matter how hard they try—especially if they’re over fifty. And, as some half dozen studies show, they are less satisfied with their lives than are people with jobs. Some analyses even come to the conclusion that the loss of employment has a stronger impact on well-being than the death of a spouse.24 People without work are more likely to suffer from psychological trouble and from stress-related illnesses like heart disease. They also have a diminished life expectancy.25

Sayings such as “There’s no right to laziness” may be punchy soundbites, but the freedom of the unemployed person to sleep late is worthless, because he hasn’t chosen the circumstances himself. To feel unneeded is humiliating. Like the people of Marienthal, the unemployed can easily succumb to depression and self-neglect. Unemployment is one of the most devastating examples of the damage that can result from learned helplessness.

Social welfare staff tend to manage lives rather than to help people onto their feet, though the United Kingdom and the Netherlands have shown how it is possible for people to find work again and to overcome their feeling of helplessness, if they are actively supported in their search for a job.26

THE BLESSING OF SELF-DETERMINATION

The key to happiness in society is to be in control of our own lives. “Losing one’s autonomy can be a devastating experience,” says the New York stress researcher Bruce McEwen.27 It doesn’t particularly matter whether people have to submit to the will of others or to circumstance (like the unemployed of Marienthal)—the experience of having no control always results in stress that is damaging both psychologically and physically.

We experience this helplessness-induced stress even in relatively trivial situations—at the airport, for example, when the ground crew announces again and again that for mechanical reasons, takeoff has, unfortunately, been delayed. We know in principle that whether we arrive at our destination a little earlier or a little later hardly matters in the long run, and that it’s senseless to get upset—after all, what say do we have over the timing of takeoff? But it is exactly this powerlessness that is the problem.

The stress response to loss of control is an ancient legacy of evolution. The stress researcher Robert Sapolsky, observing baboons in the Serengeti, noted how much the low-ranking males suffer when they have to obey the will of the alpha animal. Although the underdogs in no way suffer from want—there’s plenty in the Serengeti for everyone—the leaders of the horde are notably healthier. The lower baboons are in the hierarchy, the more stress hormones circulate in their blood, the more often they’re sick, and the younger they die.28

In humans, very subtle—and completely ordinary—forms of subordination can influence long-term well-being and health. This has been demonstrated by any number of examples:

• The citizens of East Germany enjoyed much less choice in their lives than West Germans. State power was widely feared. Feelings of helplessness were expressed even in body language, as the psychologist Gabriele Oettingen showed when she compared the gestures of customers in workers’ bars in West and East Berlin in 1986. While in the West about three-quarters of the faces expressed at least an occasional smile, in East Berlin it was less than a fourth. Still more noticeable was the difference in posture, which, according to Oettingen, expresses either self-confidence or depression. In the bars of West Berlin one out of every two customers sat upright, while in the East it wasn’t even one in twenty!29

• As a rule, the lower employees are in the hierarchy, the less control they have in shaping their jobs—with negative consequences for their health, as a study of more than ten thousand government officials in the United Kingdom showed. The results are similar to Sapolsky’s. Clear differences could even be seen between the heads of offices and their main department heads. Those in the lowest levels of the hierarchy called in sick three times as often as their bosses. Their risk of death was also an almost unbelievable factor of three. And yet the differences in income among Her Majesty’s servants were relatively small, and they all received medical care from the such as nutrition, physical activity, and smoking, explain these huge differences. The cause is a hierarchical structure that accords different degrees of authority in their jobs. The lower their rank, the more often the bureaucrats expressed their sense of powerless in sentences such as “Other people make decisions about my work,” or “I can’t even decide for myself when to take a break.”30

• Even a relatively small increase in autonomy can make people much happier—and lengthen their lives. This was evident when doctors in old age homes in the United States encouraged residents to decide the details of their daily lives themselves.31 They were no longer simply presented with their meals, but could chose from a menu. Instead of being transported by bus for coffee and cake, they could choose from among several excursions. And while previously the caretakers watered the plants, the old people took over this responsibility for themselves. These almost ludicrously small changes worked miracles: the old people assumed greater responsibility for the other aspects of their lives, got together more often, became ill less frequently, and in interviews expressed greater happiness. Most striking of all, the annual death rate was reduced by half.

The more the old people were encouraged by the staff to take their lives into their own hands, the better they did. And the reverse was also true—their condition deteriorated as responsibility was taken from them. Even subtleties counted. When students came to visit the old people, the health of all the residents improved. But those who could determine the timing of the visits did best of all.32

DEMOCRACY MAKES PEOPLE HAPPY

The happiest Europeans live in Switzerland. The explanation lies surely not in the beautiful landscape, nor in their ethnicity, because whether they speak German, French, or Italian, they’re still more satisfied than their neighbors in Germany, France, and Italy. Switzerland’s prosperity and its propensity for cleanliness are also negligible factors.

More important for people’s well-being is the unique way in which their communal life is governed, as the Swiss economists Alois Stutzer and Bruno Frey discovered.33 In Switzerland, several political systems exist concurrently, because important decisions are not made in the capital, Berne, but in the twenty-six cantons. The cantons apply the instruments of direct democracy: referendums enable citizens to amend the constitution, enact new laws, abolish existing ones, and control the budget.

But the degree of participation that the individual cantons allow their citizens varies enormously. In some cantons, such as Basel-Land, the government has to consult with the electorate on expenses above a certain level, and if voters want to get an issue onto the political agenda, it only takes a few signatures. Because the chances for success are good, the citizens of these cantons have a strong incentive to participate in politics. But in other cantons, Geneva, for example, the hurdles are higher. There the political system is more like a parliamentary democracy, such as in Germany.

Stutzer and Frey asked 6,100 Swiss about their life satisfaction and compared the figures with opportunities for influence. The result: the more people could participate in public decision making, the more satisfied they were with their lives. This effect is so strong that moving from Geneva to Basel-Land, seen statistically, does more for well-being than a rise from the lowest income level (about $1,000) to the highest income level ($3,600). Political influence has a much greater impact on satisfaction than the size of one’s bank account. Democracy makes people happy.

Are people in Swiss cantons where ordinary citizens play a larger role in public decision making happier because schools, hospitals, and swimming pools function better there? Or is there a direct satisfaction that comes from the ability to take the fate of their community and region into their own hands? To this question, also, Stutzer and Frey have an answer: the second explanation seems to apply. Among foreigners, who also benefit from the fruits of a better administration, but have no vote, life satisfaction in a direct democracy rises noticeably less than among citizens. A happy country is one in which politics is more than a spectator sport.34

THE MAGIC TRIANGLE OF WELL-BEING

A civic sense, social equality, and control over our own lives constitute the magic triangle of well-being in society. The better these three criteria are met, the more satisfied people are with their lives. But one can’t view these factors in isolation. They need and reinforce one another.

We’ve seen this in our examples. In Marienthal, civic sense was forfeited when people lost control over their own lives. The garden laid out by the workers went to seed when people were excluded from the economic life of their society and made to feel helpless.

In Roseto, on the other hand, solidarity was such a strong feature of the social fabric that people lived with a sense of great security. The foundation of this solidarity was social balance. Where discrepancies in income existed, their external signs were blurred. When this changed, the sense of community was lost.

Finally, in Switzerland, citizen control over cantonal life creates the conditions for people to join together and work on behalf of their region. And this is why the Swiss are more satisfied than other Europeans.

Civic sense, social equality, and control over our own lives increase well-being, because they diminish the stress that people are otherwise vulnerable to when they live together. At the same time, they increase our freedom to shape our lives according to our talents and opportunities.

A happy society gives its citizens the ability to decide life’s many small and large questions for themselves. It helps individuals realize their plans and hopes. According to the Indian economist and Nobel Prize–winner Amartya Sen, who studied the state of Kerala, the aim of every social development should be to increase the choices of the individual. Other goals, such as increasing prosperity, are a second priority.35

But enjoying freedom means taking responsibility. Wide-spread prejudice notwithstanding, this obligation is a pleasure rather than a burden, as the comparison of the Swiss cantons shows. Individuals profit from the advantages of a happy society when they make it work. After all, government can’t carry its citizens on their quest for happiness.

Different points of the magic triangle require different levels of effort. The individual has little direct influence on economic justice. A society reaches this goal slowly, usually by raising the quality of education for a large number of people and gradually changing their culture.36 But when they exercise control over their own lives, citizens set changes in motion. Sometimes this requires governmental or workplace reform that can take years, or even decades to implement. But a measure of freedom can often be won in small steps—for example, when childcare facilities establish flexible opening hours and schools take advantage of flexible schedules, thus enabling parents to be less constrained in their jobs.

A sense of civic responsibility means that everyone can initiate changes of this kind. Civic responsibility means engagement. Even acting only on our own behalf gives us a sense of self-determination, whether it be participating in the PTA to reshape the curriculum, taking on a leadership role at the office, or voting to replace the president of the soccer club after the season’s losses. Practicing civic responsibility increases our well-being twice over: through the results of our actions, and by the pleasure the activity itself accords.

Inactivity and the feeling of helplessness are the greatest enemies of happiness—a thought you have encountered throughout this book. Activity, on the other hand, is the key to positive feelings. This applies to the private happiness of the individual, and even more to the happiness of society as a whole. A happy life isn’t a gift of fate. To make it happen, we have to act.