Why do those countries with liberal governments have more unhappy people?

Question

SOURCE
World Values Survey
DEFINITION
Percentage responding in surveys that they were very proud of their nationality.
Lifestyle Statistics > Very proud of their nationality by country
VIEW DATA: Totals
Definition Source Printable version
Bar Graph Map Correlations
Rank Countries Amount (top to bottom)
#1 United States: 77%
#2 Ireland: 77%
#3 Australia: 70%
#4 Canada: 60%
#5 Austria: 53%
#6 United Kingdom: 53%
#7 Norway: 48%
#8 Finland: 44%
#9 Sweden: 43%
#10 Denmark: 42%
#11 Italy: 40%
#12 France: 35%
#13 Switzerland: 34%
#14 Belgium: 31%
#15 Japan: 27%
#16 Netherlands: 23%
#17 Germany: 20%
Weighted average: 45.7%

Answer 1

Liberal? Do you mean socialist? Socialism and liberalism are antithetical to one another.

Answer 2

You're not talking about happiness, but about how many said they were proud of their country. For happiness research, go to the Happiness Database, and look at the AVERAGE HAPPINESS IN 95 NATIONS 1995-2005
How much people enjoy their life-as-a-whole on scale 0 to 10 at http://www1.eur.nl/fsw/happiness/hap_nat/findingreports/RankReport2006-1d.htm . Denmark (8.2 out of 10) tops the list (happiest), followed by Switzerland, Austria, Iceland, Finland (7.7), Sweden (7.7), Australia, Canada, Norway (7.6)... The U.S. isn't bad either (7.4).

This is a 10 year survey. Surveys of later years confirm the pattern, although the top countries of course vary positions. Look at this one, Happiness.net by country, http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/lif_hap_net-lifestyle-happiness-net :

#1 Iceland: 94%
#2 Netherlands: 91%
#3 Sweden: 91%
#4 Denmark: 91%
#5 Australia: 90%
#6 Switzerland: 89%
#7 Ireland: 89%
#8 Norway: 88%
#9 Venezuela: 87%
#10 United Kingdom: 87%
#11 Belgium: 86%
#12 Philippines: 85%
#13 United States: 84%
#14 France: 84%
#15 Finland: 83%
#16 Austria: 81%
#17 Canada: 75%
#18 Poland: 74%
#19 Japan: 72%
#20 Turkey: 71%
#21 Bangladesh: 70%
#22 Spain: 68%
#23 Italy: 64%
#24 Uruguay: 60%
#25 Argentina: 59%
#26 Brazil: 59%
#27 Azerbaijan: 56%
#28 Chile: 52%
#29 China: 49%
#30 Portugal: 48%
#31 Mexico: 48%
#32 Dominican Republic: 47%
#33 Hungary: 46%
#34 Nigeria: 46%
#35 Ghana: 43%
#36 India: 40%
#37 Slovenia: 32%
#38 Croatia: 31%
#39 Latvia: 27%
#40 Georgia: 27%
#41 Estonia: 26%
#42 Romania: 23%
#43 Armenia: 14%
#44 Lithuania: 10%
#45 Slovakia: 4%
#46 Russia: 2%
#47 Ukraine: -4%
#48 Belarus: -8%
#49 Moldova: -12%
#50 Bulgaria:

Answer 3

The data does not support your premise. You must first develop a scale that would differentiate between countries concerning whether their populace and society are liberal or conservative. Some of the countries on the bottom of your list may have recently elected governments or put parties in power that are 'liberal' according to their country's history but are still very conservative on a world comparative scale. In others the populace views themselves as liberal but de facto they are still basically socialists or one step above agrarian barbarism.
If you can develop this scale accurately then you would still need to show that the correlation was not simply incidental and that the liberalism was actually causal.
Still, the numbers are interesting......

Answer 4

Interesting that you equate pride in country with happiness. I think the actual land that is our country is truly awesome. The people are about the same as people everywhere else. The U.S. government was wonderfully conceived, but then, shortly fell prey to the same things every government has fallen prey to. Namely, greed and corruption. Still, I don't feel particularly unhappy about it. We'll either overcome such weaknesses as a species or go extinct. Neither, I'm guessing will happen within my lifetime.

Answer 5

The people are probably happier. Every country on that list has public healthcare, comparatively good education, and low crime. You shouldn't equate national pride with happiness; those that are proudest of their country often have the least to be proud of, and vice versa. Scandinavian countries have the highest living standards in the world, yet less than half are very proud of their country.

Answer 6

we have a liberal government? Unless the survey was taken in the last 4 months, it reflects when the Nazis were in power.

edit-
last survey was in 2005. More repub misinformation

Answer 7

Because we individuals really do know best how to run our own lives, not government!

Watch out for do-gooder libs - it starts out with seemingly harmless bans on things such fois gras in Chicago to trans fats in New York to smoking everywhere ... might seem like the "healthy" choice that everyone might agree with, but, what's next?

Answer 8

Liberal = communist. What else need be said? They want to "make everyone equal". That never brings the bottom up.... only brings the top down. They want business owners, and workers to "keep up" people who refuse to work.

Answer 9

HAHA you are a dumb one. Proud of your country does not equal happy, genius.

Denmark is the happiest in the world, and other Scandanavian liberal countries are high on the list. The US is 23rd.

Answer 10

Liberals love America. Loving America and being proud of everything it does are two VERY different things.

Answer 11

So now we have the chickenhawk neo-cons judging other countries-remember what happened in Iraq..keep playing Army and vote Republican....