BEC中級閱讀熱點新聞精選：幸福不能靠政府
有關政府政策應更明確地聚焦于"增進幸福"的主張，近來正獲得支持。支持此種觀點的人指出，基于所謂幸福感調查的幸福指標，已停滯了幾十年。一個重要的原因是，各國政府著眼于提高一個定義狹隘、以物質為本的經濟福利衡量指標，即國民生產總值(GNP)，而非一個更全面的基于幸福的福利指標。
The idea that government policy should be focused more explicitly on promoting happiness has been gaining support. Proponents of this view argue that happiness indicators, based on surveys that purport to measure how happy people feel, have stagnated over decades. An important reason is that governments have aimed to maximise a narrowly defined materially based measure of economic welfare, gross national product, rather than a more holistic indicator of welfare based on happiness.
這一前提顯然是錯誤的。古往今來，政界人士想實現的許多目標，并非旨在提高GNP。例如，最近在英國財政部網站公布的公共服務協(xié)議，闡明了政府的承諾，要增加中小學的體育課，鼓勵人們參與藝術活動，并減少羊搔癢癥的發(fā)病率。想必，這并非"曲線"推動經濟增長的方式。
This premise is clearly false. Politicians have always sought to achieve many things that are not designed to increase GNP. The most recent public service agreements on the British Treasury website, for example, spell out government commitments to make schoolchildren do more physical education, increase participation in the arts and reduce scrapie in sheep. Presumably these are not just oblique ways of boosting the economy.
幸福趨勢幾十年停滯不前，也許正說明政府政策總體上是失敗的，說明過去50年來，通過政治進程來"改善人類"的努力是徒勞的。但這將是一個令人沮喪的結論。因此，幸福感倡導者把GNP當作替罪羊，主張經濟增長與幸福無關，甚至有害。
A decades-long flat happiness trend could be showing that government policies in general fail; that efforts to improve the human lot through the political process over the past 50 years have proved futile. But this would be a depressing conclusion. Instead, happiness advocates make a scapegoat out of GNP and argue that economic growth is irrelevant or detrimental to happiness.
另一種觀點是，長期的幸福感數據包含的真正信息很少，甚至完全沒有。我們根本不能依賴此類數據作為有用的指標。的確，這些數據并未顯示出與一系列顯然有望增進幸福的因素具有相關性，例如大幅增加休閑時間，預期壽命更長，以及性別不平等的縮小。
The alternative view is that the happiness data over time contain little or no genuine information. We simply cannot rely on such data as an indicator of anything useful. Indeed, they show no correlation with a whole range of factors that might reasonably be thought to improve well-being, such as a massive increase in leisure time, a tendency to live longer and a decline in gender inequality.
人們往往主張，收入不平等是幸福與否的重要決定因素，而這一"事實"被用作增加累進稅收的理由。然而，在收入不平等加劇或減緩期間，我們沒有發(fā)現幸福感數據有任何變化。我們還被告知，近數十年來，憂郁癥發(fā)病率大幅上升，但幸福指標并未出現與之對應的下降。
Income inequality is often claimed to be a strong determinant of happiness, and this "fact" used to argue for more progressive taxation. Yet we do not see any change in recorded happiness when inequality goes up or down. We are also told there has been a large rise in depression in recent decades, but this is not reflected by a downturn in measured happiness.
有時候，我們被告知，幸福程度之所以沒有上升，是因為家庭和鄰里關系破裂在抵消經濟增長的益處。但是，按照這種說法的邏輯，決策者應該無動于衷，因為以這種"全面"的幸福指標來衡量，我們并沒有比以前變得更糟。就連最陰沉的正統(tǒng)經濟學家也不會聲稱，物質財富可以替代親情。
Sometimes we are told that happiness has failed to increase because the benefits of economic growth have been offset by a breakdown in family and community relationships. But the normative implication of this argument is that policymakers should be indifferent because, by this supposedly all- encompassing measure of welfare, we are no worse off than we were before. Not even the most dismal orthodox economist would claim that material wealth is a substitute for kinship.
政府試圖提高幸福指標，而非提高我們的生活水平，這種做法很可能適得其反：設立武斷的目標，分散了公務員的核心職能;向許多人傳遞一個信息：幸福來自國家政策，而非我們自己的努力;以及為政府制造壓力，要求政府提高一個指標，而這個指標以往從未對任何政策或社會經濟變化做出系統(tǒng)性反應。這些正是一切瞄準目標的心態(tài)的錯誤所在，這種心態(tài)正彌漫英國公共領域。我們應該從這些錯誤中吸取教訓，而非重復它們。
Government attempts to increase measured happiness, rather than making life better for us, may well do the opposite: create arbitrary objectives that divert civil service energies from core responsibilities; give many people the message that happiness emanates from national policy rather than our own efforts; and create pressure for government to appear to increase an indicator that has never before shifted systematically in response to any policy or socioeconomic change. These are exactly the mistakes of the target-driven mentality that now pervades the British public sector. We should learn from these rather than replicate them.
從更陰暗的角度看，這個世界的幸福觀具有內在的反民主傾向。拿著筆記板、掌握統(tǒng)計知識的專家比普通人更清楚是什么讓他們"幸福"。因此，他們能夠"理直氣壯"地推翻當地民主決策或個人決策。因為從表面上看，增進幸福是一個無可辯駁的目標，它可以壓倒對某些政策的反對，而實際上，這些政策構成政治上永遠存在的非常真實的艱難選擇。
More sinisterly, the happiness view of the world has tendencies that are inherently anti-democratic. The expert with his or her clipboard and regressions knows better than ordinary people themselves what makes them happy. So local democratic or individual decisions can be overridden with a clean conscience. Because, at face value, promoting happiness is an incontestable aim, it would be ideal for steamrolling opposition to policies that, on closer inspection, pose the same very real tough choices that are a continual presence in politics.
國民生產總值并不是包含一切的福利指標;它只是衡量經濟的規(guī)模。它還沒有納入許多對我們的幸福頗為重要的因素。這些因素的維系，要依靠一個強大的公民社會，以及有民主監(jiān)督的責任制度、運行良好的政府。如果，在沒有"科學證據"的情況下，我們就不能令人信服地證明這些因素使人們幸福，那么我們在道德上就陷于不確定狀態(tài)。政府不會因為沒有衡量幸福而失敗，但是，當政府以劣質信息為依據，在資源配置方面失誤時，它就會失敗。
GNP is not an all-encompassing measure of welfare; it simply measures the size of the economy. There are many things important to our wellbeing that are not captured by it. Those things need to be sustained by a strong civil society and democratically accountable, well-run government. If we cannot make convincing cases for them without "scientific proof" that they make people happy, we are morally adrift. Government does not fail because it does not measure happiness; it fails when its energies are misdirected on the basis of poor quality information.
