"The 'Nanny State' Works"

"Radcliff's research suggests that higher levels of social programs produce a happier population and that public policies such as social insurance and strong labor market protections are among the most important factors.
"'The differences in your feeling of well-being living in a Scandinavian country (where welfare programs are large) versus the U.S. are going to be larger than the individual factors in your life,' he says. 'The political differences trump all the individual things you're supposed to do to make yourself happier—to have fulfilling personal relationships, to have a job, to have more income. All those individual factors get swamped by the political factors. Countries with high levels of gross domestic product consumed by government have higher levels of personal satisfaction.'"

Michael Hiltzik in the Los Angeles Times discusses the work of political scientist Benjamin Radcliff.