Money and Power Dont Bring Happiness Essay -- Happiness Essays

Abstract Do people who live in more developed and wealthier countries find more happiness than people in lesser developed countries? This paper analyzes the results of happiness between two sets of countries that fall on opposite sides of the industrialization and democratization scale. The results show that people between the two sets of countries are equally happy. It also shows that people in both sets of countries also are equally likely to be happy when finding things like family or friends important. As it turns out, happiness has little to do with GDP or wealth income of one’s country. In the second part of the study, happiness does not change much as a country industrializes. The author explores the point to industrialization and democratizing given one of the main goals of government should be happiness of their people. Review of the Literature It is a generally accepted idea that when countries industrialize, they improve living conditions for everyone in the country most importantly the rural poor. Britian was the first country to industrialize over a century ago, now each country that wishes to follow Britian’s example must use more state intervention. Resources and workers must be moved from rural agriculture to urban life in factories. This theory is known as the Gerschenkronian collective dillema and suggests that countries should want to industrialize and do it quickly with government coercion. Along with more state intervention in the domestic markets, industrialization also includes opening up a countries markets to international free trade. Theories introduced centuries ago by Adam Smith and other neoclassical economists state that countries will be able to increase wealth and gross do... ... of Gandhi. This speech reflects some of the views of Gandhi, himself, such as the lack of need for material items. Overall, this speech illuminates the idea that people must find inner happiness and rely less of the material world around them to get by. http://www.prosperity.com/#!/ (prosperity index) This post talks about the different countries they have analyzed throughout the years. They use a â€Å"prosperity index† by Legatum Institute to figure out and rank the different countries in the world. This index ranks countries according to economy, health, personal freedom and etc. The index shows that small countries like (Norway) can be small and not so developed but have very happy people. It goes to show that happiness is not attained by working more hours but by having more hours with close friends and family. http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs.jsp