based on nesseseity on its people under the same reasoning that are behind the rules they enforce
materialisism and resources come at cost of life
I don’t know about forcing an equal standard of living, but I do think they should (en)force a minimum standard of living.
Standard of living/Quality of Life will always be distributed across a Gaussian curve (well, usually one, but two or more can happen in some cases), the goal of a civilised government is to ensure that the deviation in that curve is small.
A narrow bell-curve is better than a wide bell-curve.
All right, Xun, how do you go about forcing and enforcing a minumum standard? Are we to force people to purchase…
certain foods?
certain beverages?
certain building materials?
All are necessary to ensure that a certain (minimum) standard of living can be (en)forced.
The only thing that perhaps any Gov’t should do is to ensure that everyone has the minimum basics to survive. After that you should be responsible for your own existence. To make a Gov’t responsible for you and to you for livelyhood is the quickest way to a totalitarian gov’t and or weaken the human spirit over all.
Yeah, a minimum standard would be cool.
Everyone gets food, water, clothing, shelter, and electricity and a home to live in
PROVIDED
there aren’t too many people!
LoL 
there’s only so much money to go round…
(tell that to the richest 2% of the world population)
Equal standard of living?
You mean taking both ends of the poor/rich spectrum and squashing them together?
Yeah, i reckon it would work for a while.
But humans can be lazy. Some people learn very quickly how to profit from people’s laziness. Therefore, equality should very quickly become capitalism again…unless we have some sort of societal cap on that, too.
I have to pick apart your premise ‘materialism and resources come at cost of life’, its true, but it also enhances the lives of those who profit from it. We have millions of Televisions and computers. All thanks to underpaid poor class citizens slaving away in a factory we dare not know about or find out, in other words, turn a blind eye to.
To say that ridding this cost by ridding materialism and resources is like saying equality is to the caveman who lives in the jungle.
We should not force anything. We create the environment in which what we want to have happen is likely.
Wealth redistribution in Europe is quite effective at narrowing that bell-curve.
Generally, I think that ordoliberalism is the most reasonable approach to matters like this, because it is able to capitalize on many of the advantages of a free market, while removing most of the unpleasant aspects of the free market economy.
That said, I wouldn’t have a problem with a guild-type setup for certain businesses where a standard of quality was strictly enforced. One thing that I’ve commented on before is the quality of produce in supermarkets. I can go to a Marsh in a nice area of town and see some very good looking produce or I can go to a Marsh in a not-so-nice part of town and the produce there looks like crap. But both places are charging the same price. So, same chain, same price . . . but different quality?
I am fine with gradations of wealth, but to reward those who are better off simply for being better off is immoral. If they were charged extra for the superior quality, that would be different, of course. The abuses that occur during gentrification projects are, likewise, problematic. Nothing wrong with making an area nice, but to exploit the original inhabitants to make that happen, well, I do have a problem with that.
Edit: Malapropism
i think that one could even interpret “insure domestic tranquility” as reason for, if not setting a minimum standard, a basic outline of bare minimums that the State’s would be responsible for upholding. Eliminate poverty, reduce the crime rate…steps towards a more tranquil place to live.
eliminate poverty.
kill the poor.
-Imp
You’re a dark minded fellow. Kill the poor, and then the middle class becomes the poor, and so on.
freedom is a bitch isn’t it?
free to work and succeed for yourself
free to fail for yourself
free to be a slave busting your ass to help “society”?
-Imp
Imp, why do put scare quotes around ‘society’? Humans are social animals, society is the sum of human interactions. It’s clearly there, and everyone’s a part of it (next to no one lives completely ‘off the grid’, and even the ones that do were raised, educated, and enabled by other humans). Humans have a stake in the well-being of society, and so in the well-being of other humans. So, why should people be free to fail? Their failure costs me.
that is the price of freedom. their failure costs costs themselves. period.
why not make yourself responsible for the actions of others as well?
-Imp
I am, to some degree. Insofar as my actions perpetuate a racist culture, I am responsible for racial descrimination. Insofar as my actions perpetuate a sexist culture, I am responsible for gender discrimination. Insofar as I encourage or engender hatred, I am responsible for violence. Granted, even the worst sinners don’t do all that much to further the culture on their own, but it takes a village to raise a child, and every member of the village is somewhat guilty when the child falls.
to it takes a village to create a village slave.
-Imp
It takes a village to raise a village idiot.
I think having a basic standard of living, one where you have your health and a gateway to the other avenues in society ( atleast must work a little to cover most of the cost ) . Also a limit to the amount of money you can make or posses ( money not used productively for the benefit of society) would solve allot of problems.
I dont have a great understanding of economics, so i obviously dont know for sure.
There are enough available resources on this planet right now to supply every person with enough food, shelter, health care, education, and employment to lead a reasonably healthy and contented life.
This is only a problem of political will.
no, the “problem” is human greed… but that’s no problem.
-Imp
Free to be born without legs and only two tiny twisted little fingers on dwarfed arms? Free to be born without a lower jaw and have white splotches all over your body? Free to get napalmed? These things sort of limit your job oportunities don’t you think? (Assuming in the spirit of this tread that a job and economy have much of anything to do with quality of life, which they do not.)
Come on man. I repress my pity feelings for the poor too, and I don’t hold how it was when I was growing up against anyone; but there is a lot of luck in life wouldn’t you say?