Policy Taxonomy

The following are the categories of policies of highly effective governments.

  1. Clean Water
    • inexpensive or free
    • economical and wise use of water
  2. Healthy Foods
    • Access to sufficient calories, fruits and vegetables
    • Move away meat diets
    • Unbiased information on health and diets
    • Food safety and testing regulations
  3. Affordable Shelter
    • Subsidized housing
    • Regulations, building codes and inspections
    • Cooling 
    • Heating
    • Mortgage support for increased ownership
    • Rent controls
  4. Security and Safety
    • Fire and police services
    • Military under the control of elected officials
    • Save infrastructure, including all private buildings
    • Crime reduction, incl. organized crime
    • Eliminate authoritarian regimes
    • Reduce corruption in governments and businesses
    •  Workplace safety regulations
    • Controls to ensure safety
    • Road and pedestrian safety
  5. Nationalized Health Care
    • medical (incl. physio, etc)
    • drugs, with some caps?
    • price controls
    • care for the infirm (mental illness and psychology support, elderly, disabled, addiction, disfigured)
    • dental
    • eyes, hearing
    • home medical equipment (dialysis, CPAP)
    • child care
  6. Quality of Life
    • Wealth distribution –  equitable share of resources, water, minerals, forests, land, amenities (lakes, resorts, etc.), income equality
      • ..  wealth needs to be distributed unless one supports effective effective and large increases to wage labour to sufficient extent to decrease wealth inequality, businesses have no incentive to pay people a fair wage; they must be forced by a union, laws, or a lack of applicants.  Business can impact the labour market to keep a surplus of people through immigration, moving employment to a more economically depressed area to put downward pressure on wages
    • equitable access to information
    • public records of wealth, ownership, income
    • education
    • public transport (free in some cases?) (and other public infrastructure)
    • universal basic income? – does this makes sense?  Or guaranteed access to work?  Income supplement
    • reduction of use of negative substances (drugs, tobacco, alcohol)
    • cooperative approach to production (efficiency)
    • a system of constant measurement
    • limits on child labour or forced labour
  7. Equality
    • Equal rights
    • Equitable share of resources between countries, races, classes – not just to be fair but to effectively and affordably provide these benefits to all
    • minimum wages
    • taxes to redistribute income (or other effective methods, such as higher wages)
    • Equality vs Freedom
    • Equality of opportunity vs equality of outcome
    • Institutes dedicated to reduce wealth inequality (so will also have to measure it)
    • Institutes to measure world poverty…and other indices
    • Laws against discrimination (e.g. not hiring solely based on race or gender)
  8. Sustainable Solutions
    • Controlled use of all renewable resources (fish, wood, etc)
    • Convincing others, political support
    • dealing with climate change impacts on all of the above
    • recycling
      1. plastics (consumer, industrial, fishing)
      2. wood/paper
      3. metals
    • clean energy use (wind, solar, water)
    • toxic wastes and portions of products
      1. no toxic wastes in food products, supplements or other products
      2. reduction of use
      3. safe disposal
      4. industrial wastes and pollutants in the environment (need to be reduced and eliminated)
    • Maintain forests and biodiversity
  9. Enforcement and Monitoring
    • Escalation and penalties, bother internal and internationally
    • monitoring of food
    • monitoring of additives and supplements (which we do not do now)
    • monitoring of all chemicals environment
    • monitoring for corruption
    • monitoring for safety
    • monitoring for quality and good practices (e.g. bldg. quality)
  10. Trade, Finance and Law
    • A single a currency/credit system with records of all ownership of all property, balances, personal holdings
      • will always need a credit system, as people will want choice of how to spend their credits…a computer, a trip, bigger housing, etc.
    • perhaps in an ideal future, perhaps private property ownership can be eliminated, except for personal items, but this would be very hard 
    • or property has which is more collectively managed
      • or laws on ownership to prevent control of citizens
    • state vs. corporate vs. personal ownership
    • local vs. federal management and control – what works best
    • financial laws: investments, loans (incl. mortgages)
    • criminal law
    • taxes
    • trade policies to balance change, and support new economies, like not overrunning and destroying emerging local industries
    • elimination of monopolies or state controlled infrastructures/services
    • monetary policy
  11. Democracy and Political Safeguards
    • limits or elimination on high contributions
    • elimination of legal corruption
    • no bribery or conflicts of interest
  12. Foreign Relations and Support