Thinking Critically †Poverty and Happiness Essay Example for Free

Thinking Critically – Poverty and Happiness Essay This paper takes the position that poverty is not necessarily equated with lack of happiness. Arguments supportive of this thesis are presented in this paper while being balance by arguments of the opposite view but with counter arguments to strengthen the position taken. One of best arguments that could be forwarded in support of the proposition taken is that people from poor countries are happier than from wealthier countries. While almost countries want to have economic progress as a battle cry of globalization, it may not necessarily mean that countries are also seeking happiness after. It could be misleading to argue that wealth is synonymous with happiness or expressed the other way, that poverty is synonymous with lack of happiness. The first argument to show lack of relationship between wealth and happiness is the higher incidents of suicides among richer countries than those from poor countries. If one compares a poor country like Philippines compared with richer countries like Singapore, Japan, Australia and US, one could just see there are more people committing suicides in richer countries despite the higher standard of living from the latter countries (WHO, 2008). If economic well being is an assurance of happier well being then why is the big difference in the number of deaths by suicides? Suicide is a voluntary or self inflicted and said event is a manifestation of lack of happiness. Psychologists would agree that happiness is difficult to measure but they would not disagree that suicide is a proof of lack of happiness and willingness to continue in life. It can be argued that the pressure to acquire more material wealth in more developed countries has created its own consequences. To cite an example, Singapore’s rapid economic success appears to have its social cost as a price. Life in said country has become a rat race for people who cannot just easily acquire resources for living as others. Think Centre (2007) cited the fear of being retrenched in job as a result of restructuring that could push the person to commit suicide. Singapore is noted to have a suicide rate higher than country like Thailand when life is reported to be much more comfortable in Singapore (Think Centre, 2007) . What could explain these things are the facts that the Singaporeans tend be striving harder, less tolerant of failures and overly materialistic (Think Centre, 2007). Given this situation it would be easy to establish the lack of connection between wealth (or poverty) and happiness (or lack of it). As a result of high-pressure living, the economic growth has not spread happiness to all hard-pressed Singaporeans. Many citizens do not have retirement savings and have been advised to work beyond 765 years to survive in this expensive city (Think Centre, 2007). Blinkered Thinker,( n. d) cited the case of the southeast Asian country of Myanmar , which borders Bangladesh, India, China, and Thailand, and which is among the poorest countries on the globe. Poverty was indeed found in Yangon as well as Myanmar but people in said places are noted to be the most hospitable and helpful tourist on earth with their smiles beating those of Thailand. It was therefore admitted that wealth can â€Å"reduce privation and some of the unnecessary sources of unhappiness, but happiness is a mood and not an economic state. † (Blinkered Thinker, n. d. ) This again confirms earlier statement that wealth is economic while happiness is social. It was however observed that in Myanmar that about 85% of the Burmese (Myanmar) people practice a form of Buddhism, which teaches that people happiness is attainable only by forsaking worldly desires (Blinkered Thinker, n. d. ). In this sense, materialism has become a contradiction of happiness. Zhang (2005) has argued that economics has failed to address this one fundamental issue until this very day. The author argued that â€Å"happiness† depends not so much on absolute wealth as relative wealth. There appears to be trade off actually between happiness and wealth as people would do more work for increase in wages but they will receive less leisure in return (Zhang, 2005). This could be easy to understand as wealth is material while happiness is social (Zhang, 2005), thus, thus the two need not go together. What is said by one person that he or she is happy does not necessarily mean what is really meant. Asking a person on whether he or she is happy may not necessarily give the correct answer as one could lie to hide guilt or deny the miserable feeling inside. In response to a study which tries to show a correlation between happiness and wealth (Wolfers, 2008), Arthur Engel, a blogger, who is a psychoanalyst from Brazil pointed out the difference between being happy and saying that one is happy. In admitting about the difficulty of measuring whether someone is happy or not, he criticized the method of asking respondent as not a good method to find out happiness. The blogger was saying that the respondent could always lie to cover up something and that there are just many factors that could influence the answers. The claim that a wealthier person is a happier, cannot therefore easily be accepted (Wolfers, 2008). The same blogger however posited that one who watches a documentary about poverty in Africa, or about rape victims, cancer hospitals, etc. may indeed find himself happier than those persons in Africa. The difficulty of measuring happiness is still there so what one feels for the seeming unfortunate people may not actually be felt by these people. But in realizing that if the suicide indices are used as measures, he agreed that â€Å"suicide is something almost exclusively committed by rich people. † (Wolfers, 2008) Another argument that would show the lack of relationship between poverty (or wealth) happiness (or lack of it) is the fact that lack of happiness could be a lot for both the rich and the poor. Another blogger to that economics of happiness reacted by quoting Herodotus who said, â€Å"Call no man happy until he is dead. † Expressing his disbelief of the analysis, because of bad methodology, vague terminology, too-eager conclusions, and failure to mention contradictory studies, which is believer to be many, the blogger was confirming the absence of relationship between wealth and happiness. This latter blogger however realized that the misery of having money worries which can seep into and poison every aspect of one’s life. She therefore admitted having enough money so that one does not have to worry, can really help but beyond that, she does not see any reason to believe, based on personal experience, that people with lots of money are that much happier than people with adequate money (Wolfers, 2008). On other point of view, it may be argued that wealthier people are happier people. Wolfers (2008) presented a paper that shows a correlation between happiness and wealth which was claimed to be the result of studies across countries in a number of periods. It could however be argued statistically that correlation is not the same causality. If applied to this case, there is no proof that happiness is causing people to become wealthy or that wealthier people are happier as result of better wealth. Moreover the responses were direct answers which may not really be reflective of the truth as respondents could always lie to hide some guilt. Since it is very hard to measure happiness, the result of the study could just not he held valid. It may be further argued that since everybody as a rule wants to be wealthy, should it not mean that happiness is desired as an effect? Everybody may just want to satisfy a need which cannot be misinterpreted as wanting to become wealthy but the result need not be happiness always. A human being is borne to have needs and that he or she has all the right to prepare for the future. There however is limit to what money can buy. It cannot buy a good sleep although it may be able to buy a good bed. I can buy amusement but it cannot buy happiness. It can be concluded that poverty and happiness belong to different realms. Although a correlation may be established between the two concepts, the relationship need not be causative as there other factors that must be considered including the manner in which happiness is measured. In certain cases, poverty may bring simplicity of attaining one’s satisfaction of one’s need and hence the struggle to have more is reduced and this could mean greater acceptability for events that are happening in one’s life. To have wealth is however not bad even in the absence of its necessary relation to happiness. Man is both material and social whereby he needs both material things and but at the end of the day, happiness appears to be ultimate desire of all people. If becoming wealthy or avoiding poverty is believed to be the means to attain happiness, the same should be respected as happiness is also personal and therefore a choice to be made. References: Blinkered Thinker (n. d) Poverty Equals Happiness? , {www document} URL, http://blinkeredthinker. com/2006/12/20/169/, Accessed May 2, 2008 Think Centre (2007) Suicide rate climbs despite good times (Insight Down South), {www document} URL http://www. thinkcentre. org/article. cfm?ArticleID=2877 , Accessed May 2, 2008 WHO (2008) Suicide Rates per 100, 000, {www document} URL http://www. who. int/mental_health/prevention/suicide/suiciderates/en/, Accessed May 2, 2008 Wolfers (2008) The Economics of Happiness, Part 4: Are Rich People Happier than Poor People? , New York Times {www document} URL,http://freakonomics. blogs. nytimes. com/2008/04/22/the-economics-of-happiness-part-4-are-rich-people-happier-than-poor-people/, Accessed May 2, 2008 Xianhang Zhang (2005) Poverty and Happiness, {www document} URL, http://www. mail-archive. com/[emailprotected] gmu. edu/msg00806. html, Accessed May 2, 2008