Psychocapital and Shangri-Las: How happiness became both a means and end to governmentality

Authors

  • F. Mckay The University of Chicago

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5195/hcs.2013.132

Keywords:

subjective well-being, SWB, happiness, economics

Abstract

In this paper a paradox is revealed in the politics of well-being over the means and ends of happiness. That paradox, in brief, is that although happiness is argued to be the ultimate end of all governmentality, in order to serve as that end, it first needs to be translated into a means for bolstering the economy, for only that way can a teleology of happiness gain a foothold in a world which prioritizes economic growth as an end in itself. To show this the paper gives a history of subjective well-being (SWB) research, and contrasts it with the politics of happiness in the UK, where SWB has in the past decade been translated into a discourse around the psychological wealth of the nation via the concepts of mental capital (MC) and mental well-being (MWB).

Author Biography

F. Mckay, The University of Chicago

Francis Mckay is a Joint Ph.D. Candidate in Anthropology and the Conceptual and Historical Studies of Science at the University of Chicago. His focus is on the science and politics of happiness, specifically how the concept of well-being is reconfiguring the notion of biopower in the twenty-first century.

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Published

2013-11-15

Issue

Vol. 5 No. 1 (2013): Translating Happiness: Medicine, Culture and Social Progress

Section

Articles

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