In Pursuit: Of Happiness and Good Government. Charles Murray
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that are wiped away by that catchall, “other things being equal.” But it is just as obvious that there are limits. At some point along the diet continuum from “beans and rice” to “every food in the world,” the correlation between “access to amount and variety of food” to “ability to pursue happiness” drops to zero. Such a thing as a threshold exists, though we defer the question of where it is to be found.
Or consider the case of a person for whom good food provides the rewards that Bach provides for a music lover. Is his threshold the same
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as for the person who hardly notices what he is eating? In one sense the gourmet’s threshold is different: The appreciation of food is for him a significant source of aesthetic enjoyment, whereas it is not for the indifferent eater. But in another sense his threshold is the same: If tomorrow the gourmet is told by his doctor to subsist on a few bland foods for his health, he can nonetheless continue to pursue happiness (even though he has been deprived of an important source of enjoyment), just as the indifferent eater can.
An examination of the threshold state and whether one exists will lead us to other kinds of analyses. For example, suppose there is a clear-cut threshold condition (a point below which happiness cannot be pursued and above which it can) but it differs widely among people. In this case, it becomes critically important that social policy maximize the ability of each person to put himself in a situation satisfactory to his own needs. Now, in contrast, imagine that there is no threshold condition for anyone, but instead everyone agrees that more is better: If you have two units of X, you are better able to pursue happiness than with one unit of X, and this holds true for all values of X. In such a case, social policy should be more concerned about pumping out an endless supply of this magic good and seeing that it is equitably distributed than with allowing people to seek their own level.
WHY NO MORE THAN ENABLE?
It may seem a minimalist approach to policy—just to “enable” people to do something (why not go further, and help them do it?), to worry just about reaching a “threshold” (why not go beyond, and supply a plenitude?). But the minimalism is intrinsic, not arbitrary. To understand the perspective of the chapters that follow, it is essential to understand first of all that when the topic is the pursuit of happiness, “enable” is as far as the government can go.
In the world of public policy that the television networks describe every evening on the news, governments face choices of how much to do, because the policies that get talked about the most are policies based on problems. A problem is shown—a flood in Pennsylvania, homelessness in Manhattan, traffic congestion in the skies, a scientific finding that a certain level of radon is dangerous—and always there is the question, What is the government going to do about it? Is it going
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to stand idly by? Reconsider its position? Invoke its powers? Propose new legislation? Increase the number of flight controllers? Issue new federal regulations?
Generally, the possible responses are characterized as choices among things to be done. The more primitive option—“doing something” versus “doing nothing”—is irrelevant for most issues. The fire department may choose to send one or two or three engines to a fire, based on an assessment of how many are needed to put out the fire. But the fire chief does not mull over each fire alarm, deciding whether to respond at all.
In such cases, it is appropriate to think in terms of the government “doing a little” versus “doing a lot.” The public may debate whether the fire department should institute a fire prevention program or require fire drills or add paramedics to its fire-fighting teams. People may argue for a stripped-down fire department or an extensive one. Similarly, people may argue over the size of a road-building program, the scope of a Medicaid program, the eligibility rules for government-paid scholarships to colleges. In all such cases, governments have open to them the choice of doing a lot or a little.
But now consider the question, “How much should the government do to help people pursue happiness?” At first, it sounds reasonable: Surely the government has, in this case as well, choices to make about how much to do. Won’t expanding the scholarship program (for example) do more to help people pursue happiness by expanding educational opportunity? But on reflection, that example does not refute the proposition that governments can only enable people to pursue happiness. An expanded scholarship program enables more people to pursue happiness (by expanding the number of people who are enabled to pursue happiness through access to education). But the “how much” question would have to be phrased in terms of the magnitude of aid available to a given individual: Does a government that provides full scholarships “do more” to help a given person pursue happiness than a government that provides half scholarships? If that’s the case, does providing a personal tutor for each recipient do more than not providing a tutor? And if that’s the case, does . . . But the point, a simple one, should be clear. People pursue happiness, governments cannot. The thing called “educational opportunity” always has to be
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transmuted by the individual who gets the opportunity into the process called “the pursuit of happiness.” It can never be the thing-itself. And, while different people respond in different ways, it is intuitively obvious that at some point (for now, never mind where) the government will no longer be doing more to help people pursue happiness by providing them with ever more lavish educational services more tenderly provided. It will be doing less.
And so with all governmental functions in their relationship to the pursuit of happiness. If a government chooses to build a lot of roads, it may build a lot of roads. If it chooses to treat a lot of sick people, it may treat a lot of sick people. But if it chooses to “help people pursue happiness a lot,” it can only go so far. It may not choose to pursue happiness on behalf of anyone. That must remain the quintessentially personal, undelegatable task of life. The government can “do as much as it can” to enable, but it can do no more than enable.
This is not necessarily equivalent to “government should do as little as possible.” Rather, it is a question of choosing the things to do. Consider by way of analogy the work of a park ranger responsible for maintaining a hiking trail through a wilderness area. His work is curiously contradictory. The people who use his trail have certain expectations—they do not come prepared for a Special Forces survival course—and so if he does his job right, the footpaths will be maintained. Perhaps there will be a guardrail at a treacherous spot. But when the guidebook specifies that backpackers who take a certain trail should be on the lookout for grizzlies, he will do them no favors if he goes out and shoots the grizzlies. If a trail is rated as a rough and rocky climb, he will do them no favors by smoothing and paving the trail. And when it comes to the land off the trails, the whole point of his job is to protect it, not to alter it—which in turn can involve delicate tasks that require the ranger to expend a great deal of effort so that as little as possible is changed.
The park ranger’s job is to prepare the wilderness so that it enables people to enjoy visiting a wilderness area—and there is no way in the world he can do an iota more than that. In describing the details of his job, the question is not how much is done, but choosing the things to be done and then determining whether those things are done right.
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“Enabling” applies to any activity in which the doing is the thing. I could have evoked as appropriately the preparation of other kinds of facilities—a play perhaps, or a party. Sometimes the preparers have a lot of work to do (designing the set, preparing the lighting), sometimes their work consists of doing nothing with forethought (choosing the right mix of guests and then standing aside). The question is not how much the preparers do, but whether they do it right. Does the stage manager enable the actors to give a good performance, does the host enable the guests to have a good time? And that is what I will be asking about the human activity that is most thoroughly a case of “the doing is the thing,” the pursuit of happiness: What does enabling consist of, and (in very general terms in this part of the book) how might these understandings affect what government does?
Often