What Price Happiness?

There may be a lot of misery in the world, opinesm Chandran Kukathas, but for many, ‘there’s gold in them thar ills’.

- Allisa Noraini

Can money buy happiness or engineer it? We’ve thrown a lot of money at a great many scientists lately trying to answer these questions. Happiness research is big and it’s making many people very happy – mostly the people doing happiness research. Without a doubt, there’s money in happiness. You don’t have to write a bestseller on it, although it wouldn’t hurt.

If you’re an academic, there are research grants to study what makes people happy or sad, rises in pay as well as prestige for publishing the results (perhaps in the Journal of Happiness Studies) and speaking fees to be collected travelling the world lecturing on contentment. Paid consultancies to tell governments how to help the public (aka voters) be happier are a bonus.

There are now classes to tell you how to become happier by becoming more mindful, less ambitious or better at knowing what you want. Everywhere there are people who are happy to help you. The Internet is awash in books, articles, reports and columns, all produced by people paid to tell us how we can be happier – or at least less miserable.

Corporations recruit certified happiness consultants to help them make their employees happier and more productive. Delivering Happiness, for example, claims to be the world’s first coach-sulting company and promises to help you “create a happier culture for a more profitable business”. In case you’re not getting the message, it adds: “If your culture isn’t empowering your team to create their best work, you’re losing money.”

But it’s not only corporations who are looking for help.