Are you happy?

What is happiness? How is it measured?
When Daniel Bernoulli came up with concept of utility (as what economic agents ie individuals maximize), he was probably thinking about happiness as Dan Gilbert says. Economists heve grown apart from such a concept thinking that utility is one thing (probably coming from consumption of goods) and happiness is something completely different, subjective, and to some degree, unmeasurable.

I, as an economist, believe this is erred. People usually seek to maximize happiness. As President Obama recently said people should be enabled to pursue their full measure of happiness. Yes, happiness is subjective, and as many econometric studies show it comes from many things: Income (but only to a certain extent), being married, having children, religion etc. (You may want to check Richard Layard's Happiness, Becker's and Rayo's papers on hedonics, and the book I recommended several posts below by Gilbert). A truly free society must allow individuals to derive happiness from whatever mean they derive it (except others' unhappiness). A free society will allow people to pusue whatever conception of good they have.

Maybe we should try to understand how people derive happiness (neuroeconomics will surely help). Maybe we should try to model it more often; maybe public policy should be oriented to incresing the recipient's happiness...

Its time to ask ourselves are we happy? How can we be happier?

Various links

Just before writng on happiness....here's a few links that are pretty interesting:

William Easterly's new blog: http://blogs.nyu.edu/fas/dri/aidwatch/
One of the most renowned economic blogs around: www.marginalrevolution.com
A classical liberal think tank: www.theihs.org
A pretty fun page www.columbia.edu/~xs23/Indexmuppet.htm

More book recommendations

Hi everyone!
As I promised, I'll be posting from time to time some book recommendations.
This time the books I'm recommending are:

1) The Elusive Quest for Growth, William Easterly
2) Nudge, Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein

hope you like them...
hopefully sooner than later I'll make another post...probably next one will be on Happiness...a very fun and interesting topic

The land of the free

The US (I'm one of the ones that don't like to call it America that much) is certainly a great country. It is the land of the free, the land of oportunity, a place where today we can truly say that "all men are created equal, and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable right. That among these are life, liberty, and the pusuit of happiness". I'm not much an Obama supporter, nonetheless I find it truly amazing that a Hawaian, son of an immigrant from Kenya, that struggled in his youth can now be the most powerful man on Earth because he has recently taken office of the Presidency of the US.

The American Dream is true. It has become true. The life struggles of people such as Jefferson, Lincoln, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcom X, César Chávez has rendered fuits. It has created the most free country; yes, it is imperfect, but again it was created by humans and hence it it bound to be imperfect; and yes, it has become overregulated, bureaucratic, corrupt in many of its institutions; but the US is alas the closest thing we have to the Classical Liberal ideal of a free society, where everything is questionable, where the Rule of Law is a truth (instead of personalitic regimes).

I would just like to mention an example that should make Mexicans think. Recently, Governor Blagojevich of Illinois was accused of corruption because he wanted to sell Obama's seat in Congress. He'll probably set foot in jail. In Mexico, several video tapes were aired by the media showing various government officials (in particular from the Mexico City government), being paid off for political favors several years ago. Today they continue to be our policy-makers!

Another example, could you ever imagine a Mexican President being the son of let alone an African country, but Guatemala? Many lessons are to be aquired from the US.

Is Mexico a failed State?

According to Max Weber, a State is the legitimized monoply of physical violence. Increasingly, the Mexican State is loosing such monopoly. The growing power of drug cartels, the augmenting wave of violence, and a generalized violation of the Rule of Law makes us think that the Mexican State is overwhelmed. A recent Pentagon-endorsed study compares Mexico to countries such as Pakistan.

There are even those that believe that a US military intervention might be necessary in the near future. Putting aside nationalistic concerns of sovereignity and autonomy, this is worrysome in the sense that Mexico is begining to be seen as a country that cannot protect its own citizens.

You may read more about the topic at the following links:
http://www.theweek.com/article/index/92337/3/Mexicos_failed_state_threat
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123206674721488169.html

More than anything, this fact should be an eye-opener for Mexico's government officials for them to sit down and do their job.

Good-bye Mr. Bush, hello Mr. Obama

Next Tuesday, Jan. 20th, Barack Obama will de sworn in as President of the United States. This will conclude the eight year Republican presidency of George W. Bush (who finishes with a very low 24% of approval), and begin a new era in world politics.

When Mrs. Rosa Parks decided to sit in a white-only seat in a bus, and thus begin we the end of racial seggreation in the US, she never imagined that just a few decades later, an African-American would be the most powerful man on the face of the Earth. When Obama was elected last November, this became a reality.

Evidently, Mr. Obama is faced with an enourmous task. It is well said: "with great power, comes great responsability." Much is expected from him, from his Ivy-League education, from his enormous charisma, from his party, from his superstar cabinet... It will take a great leader to lead the US out of a series of crises it has never experienced: fighting a war on two fronts (one of which is highlydisliked by an important part of the population), facing the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression, a growing power of drug lords just south of the border, and a long etcetera.

Will Mr. Obama keep his campaign promises? Will he choose the right economic/military/social/security decisions? We can only hope that he is up to the task. Hopefully he will not listen to the chant of the sirens who would wish him get into large deficits to bail-out the economy, hopefully he will take US troops out of Iraq cautiosly, hopefully he will declare war on the State threatening drug lords....hopefully we'll remember him as we remeber Lincoln, Kennedy, Jefferson, and the great leaders the US has had.

Book recommendations

As a part of this blog, I'd like from time to time to recommend books on the topics that will be treated as a part of it. All are titles that I've either read or intend to read in the near future. This the first set of books I'd like to recommend, many of which are by authors who were speakers at the cultural festival "La Ciudad de las ideas" (The City of Ideas) in Puebla last november.

1. Stumbling on Happiness, Daniel Gilbert (Psychology at its best on what makes us happy)
2. Chance, Amir Aczel (a little bit of Probability)
3. The Mystery of the Aleph, Amir Aczel (about the history of the concept of infinity)
4. The Armchair Economist, Steven Landsburg (everyday Economics)

5. Freakonomics, Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner (everyday Economics)
6. The Mystery of Capital, Hernando de Soto (on why some countries are rich and others aren't)


I hope you enjoy these books!

The importance of humility

I've been reflecting during the past days about the importance of humility. I've realized its importance goes beyond moral and religious grounds into the more profane world of politics and science.

Recently, on January 8th, 397 years of Galileo Galilei's death were celebrated. Today Galileo is considered the father of modern science; nonetheless this would not have been possible if he wasn't humble. Humility is, at the end, recognizing the fact that we may be wrong in what we think, believe, and state. By recognizing this we acknowledge the fact that our counterpart (whoever we are debating or dicussing with; be it the Church, the opposing political party, our fellow peers at school or work, etc.) may be indeed right.

If we are humble we may exercise tolerance, and hence in recognizing the possibility that we may be erred (as humans, imperfection is part of our nature) we will not want to impose our view (religious, scientific, political, or whatever) over others, but wish to discuss it and in any case try to convice them (not through coercitive methods). As we can see, humility is not only a Chrisitian value, but a Classical liberal one.

Humility is indeed the motor for progress. It makes us open ourselves to doubt and to discussion, which lead to the development of knowledge. But don't listen to me, I may wrong.

Welcome!

This is the very first entry of the Econoclast blog. It is intended to be a thought provoking blog in the fields of Philosophy, Economics, and Politics. As well from time to time include posts on diverse topics such as sports, literature, among others. Its final goal is to promote the values of liberty and democracy. It will be English written to appeal to a greater audience. Its name is a play on words refering to the rebellion of the Iconoclasts against the early Christian Church, which intended to abolish the use of symbols, or icons in worship. This blog intends to challenge existing views in the fields above mentioned.

As in any self respecting blog, comments are well received and ecouraged. I hope you enjoy mi day to day insanity!