How do we know the local standard of living is enough?  Part of the answer is found in not standing out in a crowd – the point is to live like those around you. But more generally, having enough to cover your basic needs is the target. This is a more useful mark in places that are poor. In the US, you will be hard pressed to find an area (there are plenty of poor communities, but not whole areas) where the standard of living is below people’s basic needs. 

You may say, why can’t the rich just build everyone up to their standard and continue to live the way they do? Because a “rich” lifestyle is subjective. It relies on its exclusivity compared to those around them. Everyone can’t be rich because everyone would be average if they were. Rich is a relative term. Don’t think of the standard we desire to build others up to as a dollar figure, that is, “I want us all to make $100,000.” Think of it as wanting people to live on less, about the same, or more than the average. There is no other way to look at a subjective standard except in comparison to other similar things. 

More fundamentally, I can’t value myself the same as those around me and then go around showing off with various status symbols like a big house, fancy car, or expensive clothes. Those status symbols are to show others around me that I’m  better than them. That’s how it works, whether you’ll admit it or not. And those status symbols function that way because they are generally unaffordable by the typical family – a family who makes right around the income necessary to live at the standard of living.  

Next up: why the standard of living as a benchmark isn’t too high.