This is my new objective for the USA and the Biden administration. It is not a perfect objective, but it is the best one that I have been able to come up with.
Median Quality Of Life, that is it. Now let's dig into it a little deeper. First off, we need to look at median. The reason that I chose median is that it is right in the middle. There are as many people on one side as the other. If I had chosen average, it could have given more weight to one side or the other and thus biased the fundamental objective. Median is right there in the middle, who could complain about that?
Next, we need to look at quality. This one is a little different because everyone has a different definition about it. Some want more freedom and less interference from big government. Others want the government to take care of them. Some want to live in rural or small cities while other prefer the congestion of big cities. Others want privacy and to life in gated communities with their chosen friends. Others want to be close to their families. As you can see this business of quality is much more complicated. The one thing that all have in common is that they are different and all require some level of income to experience that quality. I would not complain if some chose median income as the objective, but I think quality is better.
Here is where the rub comes in. Since each person defines their quality, some want to earn the most money while others as lazy or dishonest and want to take money from others that they did not earn as in tax redistribution. Either of these two extremes could sink the boat for everyone and that is the problem. So how do we solve it? Agree on a constitution of rights and responsibilities. The USA constitution does a good job on defining the rights retained by individuals and restrictions on the government, but seems to have left out the responsibility of the citizens. I guess that is what is called freedom.
Next, a little history. The founders of the USA had for centuries been under the thumb of some kind of King and royal family. This worked for the King and his court, but not for the average person. When they drafted the constitution, they were mostly looking at getting out from under the thumb of the King and royalty. The swamp in Washington DC is a type of royalty here today in the USA and just like the King and royalty, most don't like it. It might be that the founders expected that from an equal start in 1776 that most would progress on merit alone and did not realize that independent citizens might not play fair with each other. This is where all kinds of laws started being needed and we all have accepted that, but it still has not addressed responsibility. Merit would have done the job if it continued to be a level playing field, which is has not. Rather than continue with generalities, why don't we look at some examples?
Here we have a big businessman or a big farmer who wants to make as much money as he can and to do that he needs the least costly worker for his jobs. Nothing basically wrong with that, It is basic free enterprise and merit, but if it goes too far, that is where it becomes a problem. What if this businessman wants more immigration of low skilled workers and these immigrants put USA citizens out of work or drives down their wages? What is the solution? Democracy, that is the solution. The workers out vote the businessman and the immigrants are restricted in some way. What happens if the voters are duped by the smart businessman with all his money and they don't see that immigration is hurting them? Now democracy does not work. The quality of life for that median person goes down and that violates the basic objective above.
If the money of the rich businessman controls the news and communication media the system intended to allow citizens to exercise their freedom is gone. The noble objective has been high jacked. It looks like one of the responsibilities of a citizen is to make sure they are informed and thus can exercise their check and balance on the system. It sounds like everyone needs to pay their dues in someway. Being a citizen of the USA is not "free". Their are responsibilities for both one's self and the county. Sounds like another blog.
