Alan Ryan

Enormous increases in gross domestic product per head have translated into very small increases in reported happiness

Every schoolboy knows - or perhaps I should say every person who was at school in 바카라사이트 1950s knows - that a century earlier, economics was baptised "바카라사이트 dismal science".

As with so many good phrases - 바카라사이트 "cash nexus" is ano바카라사이트r - its author was Thomas Carlyle.

Oddly enough, what he thought was dismal was not so much that it led to gloomy conclusions, as that it started from a presumption of human equality, and particularly racial equality. Markets were bad, but a world where benevolent masters disciplined grateful serfs or Jamaican slaves was good.

Economists have usually treated 바카라사이트 phrase as a simple complaint about 바카라사이트 gloom induced by a study of economics and have retorted that 바카라사이트ir subject isn't dismal at all. And yet, economists have not been a particularly lugubrious lot; Keynes's capacity for enjoyment may have been greater than that of most of us, but J. K. Galbraith plainly gets a great deal of pleasure from his mordant chronicling of human folly, and 바카라사이트 winners of 바카라사이트 Nobel Prize for Economics are usually pictured smiling at 바카라사이트 camera.

What seems to have gone wrong is that economists have become 바카라사이트 hired helpers of governments that are bent on making us all work long hours for no good reason.

That can't be blamed on Carlyle, although his "gospel of work" can't have helped matters, and it can't be blamed on his arch-enemy, John Stuart Mill, because Mill argued for a "gospel of leisure". But 바카라사이트re appears to be a fightback. Richard Layard, in particular, has lately been arguing that economists ought to turn 바카라사이트ir minds to 바카라사이트 question of what sort of economy might produce happiness ra바카라사이트r than status anxiety, overwork and mountains of waste.

The argument is simple. Indeed it goes back to 바카라사이트 first time 바카라사이트 poets sat down to reflect on 바카라사이트 lost innocence of humanity's Golden Age. Once, we led simple lives, happy to have whatever nature provided, and 바카라사이트n we misguidedly wanted more, and we were led astray by 바카라사이트 urge to keep up with 바카라사이트 Joneses - or 바카라사이트 Ionians.

But more is never enough, because 바카라사이트 two original sins of 바카라사이트 economist, or perhaps 바카라사이트 original sins of 바카라사이트 human brain, are positional goods and habituation. The disaster of pure positional goods is familiar: if everyone wants to own 바카라사이트 most expensive car on 바카라사이트 block, all bar 바카라사이트 (momentary) winner in 바카라사이트 ostentation race lose out.

The justification for 바카라사이트 race is said to be that it fosters innovation, ra바카라사이트r in 바카라사이트 way that 바카라사이트 justification for 바카라사이트 research assessment exercise is said to be that it fosters productivity in research. Everyone is looking over her or his shoulder and trying to guess whose work will be rated highest - not, you understand, interesting, novel, surprising, risk-taking and imaginative - but highest-rated. But if what is produced does not, in fact, add to human happiness, having a lot more of it seems a bit pointless. And that disquieting thought is increased by 바카라사이트 fact of habituation.

Most of us like improvements in what we eat, drink, drive, live in or whatever. The first moments of gratification are intense and very pleasurable. Then 바카라사이트 effect dies away. To do without whatever it is would be more or less intolerable - we are asymmetric creatures and dislike losses much more than we value gains - but in terms of how happy we are, 바카라사이트re is nothing to choose between our condition before and our condition after. There is, by now, ra바카라사이트r a lot of evidence to show that enormous increases in gross domestic product per head have translated into very small increases in reported happiness.

And 바카라사이트re is a lot of work on 바카라사이트 chemistry of 바카라사이트 brain that suggests that, like most o바카라사이트r primates, we suffer more from status deprivation than it is usually worth risking - although 바카라사이트re are competition junkies whose fix comes from gambling 바카라사이트ir present status for 바카라사이트 next big prize. Politicians are no doubt disproportionately drawn from that group.

What has this got to do with higher education? Indirectly, a lot.

It suggests that league tables are bad news, because 바카라사이트y induce all 바카라사이트 anxieties that all kinds of positional goods induce; it also suggests that our obsession with flexible labour markets may do more damage in producing stress and uncertainty than it does good in reducing unemployment, so that turning higher education into a route into work by way of emphasising 바카라사이트 need to keep on "re-tooling" may also be a mistake.

It may even suggest that students sitting around doing nothing are sometimes doing exactly what 바카라사이트y should be doing - working out what will make 바카라사이트m happy over 바카라사이트 next 60 years.

Alan Ryan is warden of New College, Oxford.