Opening paragraphs................................

This book is first about how people pursue happiness in their lives, and then about how government can help in that pursuit.
     It is not a topic that is easy even to name, for "happiness" is an honorable word fallen on hard times.  We have gotten used to happiness as a label for a momentary way of feeling, the state of mind that is the opposite of sad.  Happiness is the promised reward of a dozen pop-psychology books on the airport book rack.  It is a topic for bumper stickers and the comic strips - happiness is a warm puppy.  A book on public policy about "happiness"?  Surely there is a sturdier contemporary term I might use instead.  "Quality of life," perhaps:  "This book is about personal quality of life, and what government can do to improve it."  Or more respectable yet:  "This book is about noneconomic indicators of perceived personal well-being, and their relationship to alternative policy options."  But there's no getting around it.  Happiness is in fact what we will be talking about.
-Charles Murray, In Pursuit of Happiness and Good Government