Economics of Happiness: A Macroeconomic Theory

Throughout our education in America, we have been blessed to learn about economic theory and how supply and demand influences prices. I propose we take the current supply and demand theory and apply it directly to happiness or positive emotions. The true currency of the world is not money, but time. Why then are so many of us willing to live a disproportionate amount of time miserable in exchange for more money or resources? The purpose of this theory is to not fix any problems, but simply assert a different way of looking at the economics of how we live our life.

The below graph will be used for illustrative purposes. For the “y” axis replace price with cost of positive emotions and for the “x” axis replace quantity with number of positive emotions experienced by the World.

Demand of Happiness

How many of you have demand on happiness, meaning you value positive emotions, relationships and interactions? I would argue that many of us enjoy such feelings, but do not have true demand for such interactions. For example, what types of media do you watch? What types of purposeful thoughts do you have about happiness or positive emotions? How diligent are you at remaining in a positive frame of mind? After examining the aforementioned questions, I would argue that many of us do not have true demand on happiness or positive emotions.

Supply of Happiness

Since there is little demand for happiness, then according to economic theory there would be little supply. By you not having demand on happiness, there is little need for those around you to provide it. Now let’s flip the table. What if  you supplied happiness to those around you? Do you feel that after such happiness or for more clarity, positive emotions supplied will elicit greater demand for such positive emotions from you? The answer would be “yes”.  As with any economic theory, there is an equilibrium point.

As the demand for positive emotions increase, the “price” for positive emotions will increase disproportionately higher and the suppliers will shortly thereafter begin providing a greater amount of positive emotions at the prior equilibrium “price”. This means, that by simply creating demand for positive emotions suppliers will deliver and thus generate a greater amount of positive emotions at the prior equilibrium price. It is however, the time when there is little or no equilibrium that resides the greatest amount of difficulty. We have had all had times where we have supplied positive emotions to someone with very little reciprocation which is hard, but given enough supply – the demand will begin to increase and equilibrium will ensue.

What this means

The world has a supply problem and it has nothing to do with the corrupt monetary policy of the government. We must be willing to supply happiness (positive emotions) to those we are blessed to interact with on a daily basis. Eventually, with such a proliferate supply of positive emotions will come an equal demand and thus reverse the trend of the abysmal supply problem we are currently facing.

You have the power to supply the world with either positive energy or negative energy. There is nothing in between. Therefore, I encourage you to be a market maker, force demand to increase by supply plentifully the total needs and goods through which God has truly made available to each of us.