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Happiness: The Only Legitimate Aim of Government
The one democratic principle is that “the end of all government is the happiness of the People…the greatest happiness of the greatest number is the point to be obtained.” John Adams, 1781
“The care of human life and happiness and not their destruction is the first and only legitimate object of good government.” Thomas Jefferson, 1809
Preface
Jefferson and Adams famously didn’t agree on much. But on the primary role of government, they were aligned: happiness and the well-being of citizens must be the primary aim of good government.
In the United States, it feels like we’ve drifted so far away from this that we’ve collectively forgotten it’s possible, let alone expected, for a government to actively pursue our happiness.
Luckily, there are many ideas ripe for adoption among organizations and countries around the world.
The United Nations 2020 World Happiness Report was released in March 2020 and went widely unnoticed. It provides several key learnings that deserve our attention.
