Hacker News Reader

Comment by cloudfifty | Hacker News Reader

If you think these things don't overlap you're ideologically blind.

From the introduction in your first link:

Through reviewing the existing studies, theories, and data behind the World Happiness Report, we find that the most prominent explanations include factors related to the quality of institutions, such as reliable and _extensive welfare benefits_, low corruption, and well-functioning democracy and state institutions.

Under Welfare state generosity:

In a longitudinal study of 18 industrial countries from 1971-2002, Pacek and Radcliff examine welfare state generosity by using an index capturing the extent of emancipation from market dependency in terms of pensions, income maintenance for the ill or disabled, and unemployment benefits, finding that welfare state generosity exerts a positive and significant impact on life satisfaction.[21]

View on HN

Your top claim was:

>People in western-Europe are happier than folk in the US, with more worker's rights and less wages.

That's two factors you linked. Let's look at them:

You imply that "workers rights" and "less wages" are perhaps major causal factors for happiness. Despite the fact you misapply western Europe, and ignore those countries in western Europe that don't fit your claim, even the part you quoted is a tiny part of the reasons listed, they do not state a single thing about workers rights (you mean legal rights like unions or contracts, or simply welfare state, which is not so much workers rights as citizen rights) and not a mention of lower wages.

What in the stuff you quoted support "workers rights" being a major cause? Or lower wages? Every single factor in there are largely or completely state functions. Let's list them: pensions (perhaps unions, definitely not stated, most Nordic have large state pension funds), income maintenance for the ill or disabled (almost certainly all state functions), unemployment benefits (state functions), the finding that "welfare state generosity..." (also completely state functions).

And this is a 1/4 of the larger reasons: (1) welfare benefits, (2) low corruption, (3) well functioning democracy, and (4) well functioning state institutions.

So - of 1/4 of the possible reasons, you quoted a statement with another 4 components, and the two you listed are not mentioned.

Are you claiming "workers rights" are a major causal factor for (not Western Europe, but Nordic) countries happiness?

This is pointless, you are just honing in on specific words and are for whatever reason unwilling to "read between the lines". The labour movement in Sweden (and other Nordic countries) was the root cause of welfare state. Workers' rights overlaps with other rights that are in the interests of the common man. These combine to create a dignified life for all. Thus better average happiness.

> Are you claiming "workers rights" are a major causal factor for (not Western Europe, but Nordic) countries happiness?

Yes, and like rings on the water organized labour creates the other ones. Why do you think even rich corporations like Amazon fight against them otherwise? Organized labour can combine their forces and make universal demands, like they did in the Nordics. Glad midsommar!

The data shows that the Scandinavian region, which is the poster child for social democracy, has suffered for it, in being surpassed by low-tax Hong Kong and Singapore in life expectancy, despite the latter coming from a position way behind them in the 1960s, and this is a result of the Scandinavian region's stagnation versus less social democratic economies:

http://iea.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/files/San...

• Scandinavia is often cited as having high life expectancy and good health outcomes in areas such as infant mortality. Again, this predates the expansion of the welfare state. In 1960, Norway had the highest life expectancy in the OECD, followed by Sweden, Iceland and Denmark in third, fourth and fifth positions. By 2005, the gap in life expectancy between Scandinavian countries and both the UK and the US had shrunk considerably. Iceland, with a moderately sized welfare sector, has over time outpaced the four major Scandinavian countries in terms of life expectancy and infant mortality.

• Scandinavia’s more equal societies also developed well before the welfare states expanded. Income inequality reduced dramatically during the last three decades of the 19th century and during the first half of the 20th century. Indeed, most of the shift towards greater equality happened before the introduction of a large public sector and high taxes.

There's not a single respectable historian that would support your revisionism. Only the type of reactionary orgs that you always link to.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com