Happy is as healthy does

It seems that when humans are given our head, we often find surprising ways to create goods and services, art and entertainment, technology and beauty. It’s a random, untidy process that would be impossible to manage. Fortunately, we don’t even try.

Or when we do try, the result is a Venezuela or North Korea, with extreme poverty and immense human suffering. No, we are doing something right by keeping hands off.

We depend on the creative spark and gumption of individuals to get things done. But the argument that we need regulation is sound. And that is to create and maintain a commons, or rather, a set of commons.

Think about goods and services and resources. They may be owned privately or in common, with the attendant rights of use, sale, and profit. A commons may be real property (such as a town common, a state forest, or a fishery) or less tangible, such as the stratosphere, wireless radio spectrum, or a corpus of knowledge.

A clear sign of a commons is if you pay taxes to support it. Your local schools. The highway system. The United States military.

The set of commons that define our economic environment act as a foundation for individuals to operate within. Every successful business, from the sole proprietor bookkeeper working at home to Walmart, Apple, and Facebook all require this foundation.

Before the collectivists among us get too excited, it must be noted that the individual, with her creativity and labor and risk taking, is of equal importance. Just creating the playground is not enough. Both collectivism and individualism are required, in a fine balance. We seem to have found it, or at least close enough.

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal reflected on why immigrants make great entrepreneurs, starting and running businesses at a rate far in excess of their population. In fact, in 2016, nearly one third of all new businesses were started by immigrants. Why? The author, an African immigrant himself, posited that America truly is the land of opportunity. Three immigrant entrepreneurs he spoke with agreed: “They were amazed by the quality of free education, by the benefits of the infrastructure and most of all by the lack of awareness by the natives of how lucky they were.” Commons, and the quality thereof, are vastly superior here.

Here is another commons that greatly influences our energy, drive, happiness, and contentment: the collective health of our human herd.

Think of this as one of those intangible commons. The better our collective health, the more energy we have for intellectual and physical pursuits, be they for profit or recreation. This contributes to our national wealth and satisfaction. Conversely, poor health distracts focus, impedes us mentally and physically, and increases real costs for treatment and care.

And the state of our collective health is not good. In October, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reported that nearly 40% of Americans are obese. Here are two observations from their report:

·         Obesity-related conditions include heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and certain types of cancer, some of the leading causes of preventable death.

·         The estimated annual medical cost of obesity in the U.S. was $147 billion in 2008 U.S. dollars; the medical costs for people who have obesity were $1,429 higher than those of normal weight.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services report that total health care spending in 2015 was nearly $10,000 per person, approaching 20% of our total economy. There are many reasons, but obesity and its attendant ills is a huge factor.

And here is another fascinating finding: obesity is contagious, the conclusion of a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2007.

As explained by the Brookings Institute, “your chance of becoming obese is much higher if you have a close friend who is obese. Obesity appears to be socially ‘contagious.’” The reasoning is that we can rationalize and give each other permission to be overweight, and contrariwise encourage ourselves to health depending on our social network.

Here is a thought for your New Year's resolution coming up only one short month from now. Get fit. Eat better. Lose weight. Encourage your friends to join you.

Let’s tackle this intangible commons of our collective health. There are enormous benefits to be gained as the pounds are lost. Good luck to us all.