Minimal Quality of Life

Famous economist Robert Reich recently wrote: “60% of American households can’t afford a minimal quality of life.” To prove his statement, he linked to a study which, I kid you not, considered necessary for “Minimal Quality of Life” attendance of two Major League Basketball games per year per person (link).

This is a textbook example of Wittgenstein’s Ruler: when you use a flawed measuring stick, the results reveal more about your instrument than what you’re trying to measure. A study that treats MLB games as necessities tells us more about the researchers than about the living standards of Americans.

That said, a reader asked me how I would define the Minimal Quality of Life. That’s a good question requiring a thoughtful answer, hence this blog post.

Principles to define the Minimal Quality of Life

Let’s begin by discussing a few guiding principles.

First, Minimal Quality of Life should be defined in achievable terms, without containing zero-sum elements. Statements like "Everyone has the right to live in the most desirable city" or "Everyone deserves a top-tier degree" are self-defeating because these goods derive their value from scarcity. If we made degrees a human right, everyone would want a PhD to stand out. It's a game we cannot win, and hence we shouldn't play.

This principle has practical implications. For example, the “higher education” component of quality of life should mean “access to high-quality learning content and affordable certification that doesn’t require physical attendance,” not “the right to attend prestigious universities.” Similarly, while everyone should have access to decent housing, no one can claim an inherent right to live in the specific locations that everyone else also wants, since this is mathematically impossible.

Secondly, Minimal Quality of Life should be defined by access to goods and services, not dollar amounts. Consider housing as an example: if the average house costs $500,000 but the average family has only $200,000, we might assume each family needs an additional $300,000 to live well. However, simply giving everyone $300,000 wouldn't solve the underlying problem. Without building more housing, we would still have fewer dwellings than families, meaning some families would remain priced out regardless of their wealth. The real solution is to build enough housing for everyone.

This means we should resist defining Minimal Quality of Life through minimum wage or wealth targets, and instead focus on whether we’re producing sufficient goods and services for everyone’s basic needs.

Thirdly, a definition of Minimal Quality of Life should remain truly minimal. By definition, this standard won’t satisfy most people. If it did, we’d call it Good Quality of Life instead. But why focus on minimal rather than good standards? I address this question in the following section.

Minimal vs Good Quality of Life

Imagine we were to define the Minimal Hotel. Most people would agree on the requirements: a safe shelter, a clean room with a bed and linens, access to a clean bathroom, and electrical outlets. Maybe a few would disagree, but most would agree. Building a Minimal Hotel would be relatively cheap. We could easily, as a society, build a Minimal Hotel for everyone.

Now, try defining a Good Hotel. Some would demand bathtubs, others sofas, still others restaurants or fitness centers. To satisfy everyone's definition of “Good,” we would need to include every amenity anyone considers necessary. The resulting hotel would be prohibitively expensive—impossible to provide for everyone without requiring more labor than society is willing to supply.

This last point is critical. Since building hotels and their furniture requires human labor and society’s work capacity has limits, universal access to Good Hotels is only possible through variety: many different hotels, each excelling in some areas while being basic in others, allowing people to choose the trade-offs that matter most to them. All would still have to meet Minimal standards, obviously, but none would satisfy everyone's definition of “Good.”

Hence, it makes more sense to measure Minimum Quality of Life and ensure everyone has a path to what qualifies as Good for them, rather than to measure a Good Quality of Life consisting of goods and services which not everyone is willing to make sacrifices for, or wouldn’t consider necessary if it weren’t for the fact that most people around them have it too.

So, what should be included in the definition of Minimal Quality of Life?

A definition of Minimal Quality of Life

First, I would include all basic human rights, particularly non-physical ones: equal treatment under the law, free speech, occupational choice, democratic participation, and similar fundamental freedoms.

Secondly, I would include all basic survival needs: shelter, food, medical care, and similar essentials. But in what quantity and quality? Since we’re defining Minimal Quality of Life rather than Good Quality of Life, I would include only what 95% of able-bodied people consider worth working for. If more than 5% of people wouldn’t willingly work to obtain something, it’s likely beyond what counts as truly minimal.

Thirdly, I would include access to genuine paths for upward mobility. While some people may decline opportunities that require effort in exchange for improving their condition, society should ensure these pathways exist and are truly actionable. This means more than just providing access to, e.g., quality education, which is relatively straightforward in the internet age. The greater challenge is ensuring people are aware of these opportunities and, crucially, believe they can realistically leverage them.

Fourth, I would include nothing else. The benefits of expanding this definition are outweighed by the costs of diluting our focus. Our attention is better spent ensuring the first three categories are not only fulfilled, but fulfilled well enough to meaningfully improve lives and efficiently enough so that we can fulfill them for everyone.

This last point is of paramount importance. Just last week, in an essay about Cultural Subsidies, I wrote: “precisely because culture should be a common good, it is paramount to keep its costs low and cut unnecessary expenses [so that we can produce enough culture with our limited time and work].” Similarly, it is precisely because guaranteeing a Minimal Quality of Life for everyone is so important that we should ensure we achieve it as cheaply and efficiently as possible, without deluding ourselves that it is possible to do it while keeping costs high and production inefficient.

Don’t get me wrong. I'm not lowering my ambitions for what society can achieve. Rather, I'm arguing that as long as we fail to guarantee these three fundamental requirements for everyone, it makes little sense to prioritize anything else. Moreover, it is precisely by fixing our failure to do so that we also fix the structural problems that would enable society to achieve more ambitious objectives.