Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger

• Book: The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger. By Pickett, Kate. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2009

Summary

"In a recent study, two British social scientists have assembled data from nearly two dozen of the richest countries in the world. The data shows how strongly levels of income inequality correlate with a variety of indicators of social well-being. As a rule, more unequal societies have more homicides, violent crime, and prisoners; more mental illness (including drug and alcohol addiction), obesity, teenage births, and infant mortality; lower levels of trust, child well-being, children’s educational performance, and social mobility; and lower life expectancies.

The Spirit Level authors, Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, make the argument that we now know “how to make substantial improvements in the quality of life for the vast majority of the population” (p. xi): move toward greater equality of income. For a variety of sometimes complicated but often simple reasons, greater equality of income improves social well-being across a society." (http://workingclassstudies.wordpress.com/2010/07/05/how-unequal-should-our-incomes-be/)