A lot of things have no total ordering, independence level including. If a person A can unclog the sink and person B can trim the hedges, they are not comparable to each other; however both of them are less independent that person C who can do both.

This ordering requires defining the scope, and the narrower the scope, the easier it is to compare people. If you only look at "maintain the rented city apartment" and "live in rural house" in isolation, it's pretty easy to rank people by independence. But if you say that _either_ of those counts as "independence", the things get much harder to qualify. But either way, there will be people who can't do anything, people who can do everything, and a large mass of "uncomparable" people in the middle.