After reading this here one has to conclude that the sole purpose of liberalism in life is to do nothing more than depress people. Upon reaching that conclusion. I think they should be kicked out of the country. In the name of national security or something....

We need an exchange program. That is, we'll trade one educated-beyond-his-intelligence liberal professor for one hardworking illiterate peasant that wants to get ahead. We'll trade Dan Rather for anyone with the sense to see what's in front of his nose. Etc...

Of course, in a truly libertarian society there would be no such thing as public parks and everyone could drive anywhere as fast as they wanted (of course, my private police force would shoot your tires out if you drove too fast near my private school). However...

Suppose, just suppose, that a study found that people were happier in urban environments with car-free public squares (such as in many older European cities), bicycle paths, well maintained public parks and good public transportation.

Might that not be useful information to city planners?

But this article barely mentions government policy, except to say that the government shouldn't make it policy to increase public happiness (which I generally agree with). It advances the ground breaking finding that you can't buy happiness. And you can't - it turns out that lottery winners are no happier a year after they win.

I actually can't think of a better question than "how can I be happier?" Perhaps, because we're all part of this human family, we might find answers looking outside our borders and our particular assumptions - which in this country seems to include the erroneous belief that money does make people happier in the long term.

The happiest place I've ever been in my life was a small village in Mexico where everyone had enough to eat, had strong family ties, and were dirt poor by American standards.

If happiness isn't worthy of study, I don't know what is.

Scotch,

I think you are overanalysing a bit. It's like this: When the economy is down, it's all Bush's fault. When the economy is up, they're saying, well money doesn't buy happiness, and people aren't happy so it's all Bush's fault.

It's a classic damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Well, it's not like the economy has been soaring to new heights lately. You could read this article as helping Bush. So what if the economy has been sluggish to recover and the gap between rich and poor has continued to grow? Money doesn't buy happiness, you know.

I doubt the authors of the study/article were waiting for the right economic indicator to publish, though.

Now for my daily left-wing rant.

The principle of Libertarianism seems to to be that if we leave everyone alone to do what they want, the public good will be achieved. Now, I agree that paternalistic and overreaching government is a bad thing, but I disagree that an unregulated, profit-driven capitalism is the way to achieve the highest public good. Exhibit A: India (note the Communist state of Kerela, which has much higher literacy and standard of living than the rest of the the country).

You might want to build a house on the hill overlooking the city, thinking that it would bring you happiness. So you do it. And so do other wealthy people. Pretty soon everyone's built everywhere, there's traffic jams, powerlines everywhere, smog and lack of community. In pursuing your individual happiness, not only haven't you found it, but have diminished it for others.

Now if the paternalistic government (as in many European cities and a few progressive ones in this country have done) put their foot down and said no to new development, what's the result? Less sprawl, less pollution, more nature for everyone to enjoy (and land that might be necessary to grow food on at some later stage), more money to invest in public transportation over roads, and more of a sense of community.

If this country were a small Indian tribe, we'd have (hopefully) wise elders to make decisions on what's good for the tribe as a whole. Here in America, we have government. It's incredibly corrupt and often just as short-sighted than your average corporate raider, at least on the federal level, but it needs to exist to look out after the public good.

When government becomes a vehicle for increasing corporate profits as it has lately, the public good suffers - and sometimes in ways that can't be easily measured with an economic indicator. The owner of a power plant may experience increased profit (supposedly leading to happiness) if allowed to pollute more, but the cost is carried by all.

You obviously don't understand Libertarianism.

Here's one definition I found:

"Libertarians believe that each person owns his own life and property, and has the right to make his own choices as to how he lives his life - as long as he simply respects the same right of others to do the same."

This is my understanding. I think it sounds great, except for seeming to reduce everything to private property and ignoring how everything is interconnected. If I build a well on my property, it will reduce the water table for everyone.

Now, sure...if there were a water shortage, this could show lack of respect to others through my choices and I would be a bad Libertarian.

So far, so good - Golden Rule all the way. But the way in which the industrialized West obtains materials from less developed countries is often incredibly disrespectful. Case in point: Chevron (aided by Condi Rice) has spilled ten times the amount of oil spilled by the Valdez in the Niger delta region. This has dramatically hurt the "property" owned by people in the region.

When a good Libertarian spends their money, shouldn't they take this into account?

Also, is there a place for public spaces within the Libertarian framework, or is everything reduced to private property?

If I'm not understanding this correctly, I'd be interested to learn what I'm missing.