High standard of living versus high quality of life
- Thread starter Rationalist
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Bfgrn
New member
More irony.
I guess you know yourself...LOL
DamnYankee
Loyal to the end
Again with the irony.
DamnYankee
Loyal to the end
He don't want to do that; wants to move France to here instead.
Minister of Truth
Practically Perfect
Bfgrn
New member
It's ironic, that the time Thomas Jefferson spent in Europe prompted him to vehemently oppose industrialization in America. He witnessed first hand the "corruption of morals in the mass of cultivators"
Thomas Jefferson, "The Importance of Agriculture" from Notes on the State of Virginia (1784)
In this famous passage, Jefferson voices his confidence in yeomen farmers and his fear of the influence of industry.
The political economists of Europe have established it as a principle that every state should endeavor to manufacture for itself; and this principle, like many others, we transfer to America, without calculating the difference of circumstance which should often produce a difference of result.
In Europe the lands are either cultivated, or locked up against the cultivator. Manufacture must therefore be resorted to of necessity, not of choice, to support the surplus of their people. But we have an immensity of land courting the industry of the husbandman. Is it best then that all our citizens should be employed in its improvement, or that one half should be called off from that to exercise manufactures and handicraft arts for the other? Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God, if he ever had a chosen people, whose breasts he has made his peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue.... Corruption of morals in the mass of cultivators is a phenomenon of which no age nor nation has furnished an example. It is the mark set on those who, not looking up to heaven, to their own soil and industry, as does the husbandmen, for their subsistence, depend for it on the casualties and caprice of customers. Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition....
Generally speaking, the proportion which the aggregate of the other classes of citizens bears in any state to that of its husbandmen is the proportion of its unsound to its healthy parts, and is a... barometer whereby to measure its degree of corruption. While we have land to labor then, led us never wish to see our citizens occupied at a workbench, or twirling a distaff. Carpenters, masons, smiths, are wanting in husbandry; but, for the general operations of manufacture, let our workshops remain in Europe. It is better to carry provisions and materials to workmen there than bring them to the provisions and materials, and with them their manners and principles. The loss by the transportation of commodities across the Atlantic will be made up in happiness and permanence of government. The mobs of great cities add just so much to the support of pure government, as sores do to the strength of the human body. It is the manners and the spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigor. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to the hearts of its laws and constitution.
DamnYankee
Loyal to the end
Don't you Libtards also quote him to say 'the world belongs to the living', and that justifies you ignoring the Constitution? Which of Jefferson's philosophies should we ignore?
Minister of Truth
Practically Perfect
Jefferson was obviously a great character witness on morals and the corruption thereof.
apple0154
MEOW
Huh? I'm not trying to establish an upper limit for anyone.
Let's try this again. At what point, dollar-wise, would you say one reaches the point where money is no longer a worry as far as obtaining the necessities of life?
Stated another way how does one determine they have sufficient money if there are no government programs in place?
DamnYankee
Loyal to the end
My point is that it doesn't matter. Its not up to you to decide what happiness is for everyone else, because everyone's different. For wandering bear, he's happy to live in his trailer and smoke dope as long as he doesn't have to work. Others like to work and make money and have three beach houses.
Bfgrn
New member
Am I Thomas Jefferson? Do you have to phone a college professor to answer that question?
The title of the thread is: High standard of living versus high quality of life
Thomas Jefferson had very strong feelings about quality of life. Maybe you should READ his words. He would not be impressed with today's America. His beloved agrarian society has been overrun with "Corruption of morals in the mass of cultivators" and the individual farmer who he called "Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God" has been pushed out by the infestation of corporate farms.
W
WinterBorn
Guest
Yes, a nice bucolic agrarian society is a peaceful place to live. But one drought and you are starving. One blight and your entire community is bankrupt and worthless. It is living just a step or two about subsistance level. It is not focused on education or progress, but on stagnation.
Never has so much food been available to so many people. But I guess if you dislike that it is for your own reasons.
SmarterthanYou
rebel
that sounds familiar......."From each according to his ability, to each according to his need". how ya doing today Karl?
Good Luck
New member
The problem with this question is the definition of "necessity" alters as one gains wealth. When shivering in a two room tar-paper shack with the rest of your family, dad bringing home a pair of rabbits for supper is pure luxury compared to the gopher & wheat gruel you had the day before. Since both fill the belly (kind of), which is need and which is luxury?
To some who have never lived the conditions of genuine poverty, cable TV is labeled a necessity. (And those who would make sure the rich subsidize the poor have no problem with that.) In a society born with silver spoons in their mouths while complaining it isn't gold plated, defining necessity becomes an exercise in the ludicrous.