Unhappy Prosperity &#0151 Farewell, Tony Blair

On June 27, Tony Blair left office after having been Britain's prime minister for 10 years. His next job will be that of envoy for the so-called "Quartet" of Mideast negotiators: the United States, the UN, the European Union and Russia.

Let's hope that his new employers appreciate him more than his old ones.

Blair leaves 10 Downing Street with the dubious distinction of having been the "most unpopular Labour Prime Minister of modern times." Last November, his approval rating sank to 26 percent.

In other words, Blair is less popular than the Labour leaders who presided over Britain's economic collapse of the 1970s: when inflation ran as high as 24 percent a year and the British economy was paralyzed by frequent strikes.

In contrast, Blair's tenure saw the "longest uninterrupted period of [economic] growth in 200 years," not to mention the end of the "troubles" in Northern Ireland.

Don't get me wrong: There are many issues, especially cultural and right-to-life ones, in which I strongly disagree with Blair. But I still think that he's getting a raw deal from the British public.

The British aren't unique in this regard. If you compare conditions in the US today to those during the 1960s and 70s, you would have trouble understanding President Bush's historically low approval numbers.

Even with the unpopularity of the war in Iraq, Americans are by any reasonable measure, far better off today then they were back then, or in 2001, for that matter. And there hasn't been another terrorist attack on US soil. Yet, like Blair, the president is vilified.

What's going on? Part of it is that higher standards of living aren't a guarantee of personal happiness. A recent study of Americans found that "Americans are less happy today than they were 30 years ago." The researchers concluded that any happiness produced by an increased standard of living was more than offset by a "drop in the quality of relationships" during that time.

The same is true in Britain. Although real incomes have tripled since the 1950s, the number of people who described themselves as "very happy" has dropped dramatically from 57 to 36 percent.

While there are many reasons why unhappiness is on the rise, people on both sides of the Atlantic expect government to do something about it. The same poll that measured Brits' unhappiness found that 80 percent of them believed that the "government's prime objective should be the ‘greatest happiness.'"

We have succumbed to the illusion that every problem has a political solution. All that's needed is the right combination of expertise and political will. Of course, the idea that government can promote or create "happiness" is absurd on its face: a New Scientist survey found that Nigerians and Mexicans, whose countries aren't known for stellar governance, are the happiest people in the world.

Yet this is the standard to which we hold our leaders? If we're unsatisfied with our lives, we get angry with them and blame the government.

There is, however, one group of people who will have good cause to be unhappy: whoever succeeds Blair and Bush. Things will be the same for them. Until, that is, people realize that neither wealth nor government can ever be the source of true happiness.