Improving Our Standard of Living (Wattpad Edition)

Chapter 1: Standard of Living Definition

Standard of living is the same as quality of life. Some people might have slightly different definitions, but that's splitting hairs.

Standard of living is a relative concept. Everyone's understanding of it varies a little. That's okay. I'm still going to give a solid definition. That way, you'll have a clear idea of what I mean by the term as I use it throughout this book.

The standard of living of an individual is his or her access to resources and opportunities. More is better.

Examples of resources include food, water, shelter, clothing, healthcare, education, sanitation, transportation, phones, books, movies, games, computers, land, internet access, and more.

Resources also include services from other people. For example, those provided by a mechanic, doctor, or programmer.

Quality is also important.

Resources can be privately owned or publicly owned. For instance, someone that owns a car versus someone that prefers public transportation. Both individuals have access to the same resource.

Resources are also known as goods and services, or wealth.

The more wealth society has, the more tools people have to do things. That means they have more opportunities too.

However, if nations don't produce goods and services in a sustainable manner, they will harm the environment. Nature is where we get everything. If we damage it beyond repair, our ability to generate wealth will diminish. Our quality of life will plummet.

Opportunity is the second component of a country's standard of living. While resources provide opportunities, there are also non-material ones. They are political and economic freedoms. They include the right to work, own property, vote, drive, give one's opinion, dress as one sees fit, and pursue pleasurable activities.

Basically, opportunity is the right to do whatever you want as long as you're not hurting others.

Even in some wealthy countries, poor people, women, and minorities don't have enough rights. In Saudi Arabia, for example, women are not allowed to drive and were only recently given the right to vote. They are restricted in other ways too.

Everything else being equal, nations with fewer rights have poorer living standards.

If a freedom can potentially cause harm, it should not be taken away if the harm of doing so is greater to society.

The right to drive, for example, causes some deaths, but banning it would be worse. We permit driving even though we know some people will die in accidents.

Alcohol is another example. It has the potential to cause harm. But banning it would require diverting resources and giving the government power to intrude into people's lives. That would cause greater harm than permitting individuals to consume alcohol in the privacy of their homes.

Sugar is another example. Abusing it causes all manner of diseases and is statistically deadlier than alcohol. But giving the government authority and resources to barge into everyone's lives every day to keep them from consuming sugar would reduce a nation's standard of living more than permitting its existence.

The war on drugs is a real-world example. According to whitehouse.gov, the United States government spends $30 billion every year trying to reduce drug use [1]. A significant part of that money is spent sending people to prison for minor offenses such as marijuana possession.

There is much we could do with $30 billion besides interfering with people's lives. We could use it to reduce poverty, improve our infrastructure, or increase scientific research. Those would be better ways of combating drug abuse anyway. Systemic issues like poverty and inequality are the real causes of addiction, gun violence, and every other societal ill.

Banning freedoms, even if they have the potential to be abused, requires that a government impose its will on individuals that are usually minding their own business, and to do so with people's tax money. That causes all sorts of problems, in addition to being a massive waste of resources.

There are better ways of minimizing social ills that don't require controlling what people can and cannot do with their personal lives.

For instance, there is nothing wrong with trying to prevent drunk driving. But banning alcohol in the privacy of the home would be a restriction on personal freedom. It would, therefore, reduce a nation's quality of life, even though a percentage of people that drink at home will also drive drunk.

The solution is to reduce drunk driving without abolishing the freedom to drink at home. There are all sorts of ways to do that, even if none of them are perfect. Someday self-driving cars will help with this and should be encouraged. Reducing poverty and inequality would also curb alcohol abuse. We know that because it's a bigger problem in poor neighborhoods. Alleviate poverty, and society cuts down all other problems associated with it.

The right to consume sugar should not be banned either, even though some parents feed their children too many sweets, giving them diseases. There are better ways of reducing sugar abuse without banning it or artificially increasing its price via a consumption tax. Alleviating poverty would help the most because being poor is strongly correlated with obesity.

If a nation wants to reduce petty crime and self-harm, the most efficient way to do that is to spend its time and resources improving the standard of living of its people. Expending time and resources in any other way is suboptimal at best, and counterproductive at worst.

Perhaps the most important freedom is the freedom of speech, especially the right to be offensive. If a government becomes tyrannical, or if a corporation engages in harmful behavior, people need the freedom to criticize. They need the right to be offensive.

The reason China, for instance, isn't a full-fledged democracy yet is that the citizens there don't have free speech. If anyone says something critical of the government, it censors them.

For a historical example, the Founding Fathers often wrote offensive articles criticizing the British Empire. This was before the Revolution. The British tried to censor them. Had they succeeded, the United States wouldn't have been founded. The colonists wouldn't have rallied against the Empire or known what was going on. The Founders made it clear that freedom of speech, especially the right to be offensive, is necessary for a nation to have a high standard of living.

The problem with banning offensive speech is that it's one step from banning criticism against a misbehaving government or corporation. Unwarranted speech must be permitted because what is and isn't warranted is subjective.

Banning freedoms, even if the intention is good, tends to cause more harm.

Standard of living is not just happiness. A person can decide to be happy even if he or she has a poor quality of life. A prisoner in solitary confinement or a homeless person can retreat into their minds. A decent standard of living is more than choosing to be happy under adverse circumstances. It's about having tools and opportunities to do things with one's life. Fortunately, that tends to make people happier.

The key to improving society's standard of living is to create as many resources and opportunities as possible. That means producing more goods and services and in a sustainable manner. It also means ensuring that everyone has the freedom to do what makes them happy as long as they aren't harming others. Or if the damage of their actions is less than the harm caused by banning their activities.

It's also important to make sure that as many people as possible are benefiting from the goods and services produced in society. A nation cannot have an optimal standard of living if most of its wealth goes to a rich minority.

Unfortunately, in many countries, the same people that produce most of the wealth—the working and middle classes—end up with the smallest share.

More on that later.

Notes

1. "The National Drug Control Budget: FY 2013 FundingHighlights." The White House. Accessed January 25, 2016.https://www.whitehouse.gov/ondcp/the-national-drug-control-budget-fy-2013-funding-highlights.