The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger

by Richard Wilkinson

  Similarly, if Britain became as equal as the same four countries, levels of trust might be expected to be two-thirds as high again as they are now, mental illness might be more than halved, everyone would get an additional year of life, teenage birth rates could fall to one-third of what they are now, homicide rates could fall by 75 per cent, everyone could get the equivalent of almost seven weeks extra holiday a year, and the government could be closing prisons all over the country.

  What is essential if we are to bring a better society into being is to develop a sustained movement committed to doing that. Policy changes will need to be consistently devoted to this end over several decades and that requires a society which knows where it wants to go. To help with this we provide – and will continue to provide – our research findings, graphs and other information on the Equality Trust’s web site (www.equalitytrust.org.uk).

  The initial task is to gain a widespread public understanding of what is at stake. But rather than allowing this to be just one more idea that briefly gains attention before fashionable opinion moves on, we need to build a social movement committed to its realization. It must be taken up and pursued by a network of equality groups meeting to share ideas and action everywhere, in homes and offices, in trade unions and political parties, in churches and schools. It needs also to be pursued by the pressure groups, charities and services concerned with the various issues which are related to equality, whether health or teenage births, prison populations or mental health, drugs or educational standards. And they need to be coupled with the urgent task of dealing with global warming. In all these settings we must speak out and explain the advantages of a more equal society.

  Nor should we allow ourselves to be cowed by the idea that higher taxes on the rich will lead to their mass emigration and economic catastrophe. We know that more egalitarian countries live well, with high living standards and much better social environments. We know also that economic growth is not the yardstick by which everything else must be judged. Indeed we know that it no longer contributes to the real quality of our lives and that consumerism is a danger to the planet. Nor should we allow ourselves to believe that the rich are scarce and precious members of a superior race of more intelligent beings on whom the rest of us are dependent. That is merely the illusion that wealth and power create.

  Rather than adopting an attitude of gratitude towards the rich, we need to recognize what a damaging effect they have on the social fabric. The financial meltdown of late 2008 and the resulting recession show us how dangerous huge salaries and bonuses at the top can be. As well as leading those in charge of our financial institutions to adopt policies which put the wellbeing of whole populations in jeopardy, the very existence of the super-rich increased the pressure to consume as everyone else tried to keep up. The long speculative boom which preceded the financial crash was fuelled substantially by the growth of consumers’ expenditure. Increased inequality led people to reduce their savings, increase their bank overdrafts and credit card debt, and arrange second mortgages to fund consumption. By adding to the speculative element in the cycles of economic boom and bust, great inequality shifts our attention from the pressing environmental and social problems and makes us worry about unemployment, insecurity, and ‘how to get the economy moving again’. Reducing inequality would not only make the economic system more stable, it would also make a major contribution to social and environmental sustainability.

  Modern societies will depend increasingly on being creative, adaptable, inventive, well-informed and flexible communities, able to respond generously to each other and to needs wherever they arise. Those are characteristics not of societies in hock to the rich, in which people are driven by status insecurities, but of populations used to working together and respecting each other as equals. And, because we are trying to grow the new society within the old, our values and the way we work must be part of how we bring a new society into being. But we must also try to bring about a shift in public values so that instead of inspiring admiration and envy, conspicuous consumption is seen as part of the problem, a sign of greed and unfairness which damages society and the planet.

  Martin Luther King said, ‘The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice.’ Given that in human prehistory we lived in remarkably equal societies, maintaining a steady state – or sustainable – way of life in what some have called ‘the original affluent society’,324 it is perhaps right to think of it as an arc, curving back to very basic human principles of fairness and equality which we still regard as good manners in any normal social interaction.349 But at all stages, creating a more equal society involves people speaking their minds, making the case, organizing and campaigning.

  It is impossible for governments not to influence income differences. Not only are they the largest employer in most countries, but almost every area of economic and social policy affects income distribution. Tax and benefit policies are the most obvious way. Other influential areas of policy include minimum wage legislation, education policies, the management of the national economy, whether unemployment is kept to low levels, whether different rates of VAT and sales taxes are applied to necessities and luxuries, provision of public services, pension policies, inheritance taxes, negative income tax, basic income policies, child support, progressive consumption taxes,351 industrial policy, retraining schemes, and many more. But in this chapter we have also suggested more fundamental changes to ensure that income differences are subject to democratic control and greater equality becomes more deeply rooted in the social fabric.

  At this stage, creating the political will to make society more equal is more important than pinning our colours to a particular set of policies to reduce inequality. Political will is dependent on the development of a vision of a better society which is both achievable and inspiring. We hope we have shown that there is a better society to be won: a more equal society in which people are less divided by status and hierarchy; a society in which we regain a sense of community, in which we overcome the threat of global warming, in which we own and control our work democratically as part of a community of colleagues, and share in the benefits of a growing non-monetized sector of the economy. Nor is this a utopian dream: the evidence shows that even small decreases in inequality, already a reality in some rich market democracies, make a very important difference to the quality of life. The task is now to develop a politics based on a recognition of the kind of society we need to create and committed to making use of the institutional and technological opportunities to realize it.

  A better society will not happen automatically, regardless of whether or not we work for it. We can fail to prevent catastrophic global warming, we can allow our societies to become increasingly anti-social and fail to understand the processes involved. We can fail to stand up to the tiny minority of the rich whose misplaced idea of self-interest makes them feel threatened by a more democratic and egalitarian world. There will be problems and disagreements on the way – as there always have been in the struggle for progress – but, with a broad conception of where we are going, the necessary changes can be made.

  After several decades in which we have lived with the oppressive sense that there is no alternative to the social and environmental failure of modern societies, we can now regain the sense of optimism which comes from knowing that the problems can be solved. We know that greater equality will help us rein in consumerism and ease the introduction of policies to tackle global warming. We can see how the development of modern technology makes profit-making institutions appear increasingly anti-social as they find themselves threatened by the rapidly expanding potential for public good which new technology offers. We are on the verge of creating a qualitatively better and more truly sociable society for all.

  To sustain the necessary political will, we must remember that it falls to our generation to make one of the biggest transformations in human history. We have seen that the rich countries have got to the end of the really important con
tributions which economic growth can make to the quality of life and also that our future lies in improving the quality of the social environment in our societies. The role of this book is to point out that greater equality is the material foundation on which better social relations are built.

  Appendix

  HOW WE CHOSE COUNTRIES FOR

  OUR INTERNATIONAL COMPARISONS

  First, we obtained a list of the 50 richest countries in the world from the World Bank. The report we used was published in 2004 and is based on data from 2002.

  Then we excluded countries with populations below 3 million, because we didn’t want to include tax havens like the Cayman Islands and Monaco. And we excluded countries without good information on income inequality, such as Iceland.

  That left us with 23 rich countries:

  CALCULATING THE INDEX OF HEALTH AND SOCIAL PROBLEMS

  Not all of the countries in our data set had data for all the health and social problems listed on p. 19, but 21 of them had data on at least 8 of the 9. We include all these countries in our Index of Health and Social Problems (IHSP). Israel had only 6 and Singapore only 5 indicators, so they are not included in the Index, but are included in Chapters 4–12 whenever data permits.

  The IHSP for the 50 US states was calculated using 9 variables rather than all 10 because there were no data on social mobility. Forty states have complete data for the 9 variables. Trust (from the General Social Survey) was missing for 9 states, and one did not have homicide data.

  We calculated the z-scores of each indicator for each society, added up the z-scores for all the variables available for each society, and divided by the number of variables available. So a society’s score in the IHSP is the average z-score for the variables available for it.

  Each component of the IHSP is therefore weighted equally.

  THE 50 AMERICAN STATES

  In our figures, we label each American state with the two-letter abbreviation used by the US Postal Service. As these will be unfamiliar to some international readers, here is a list of the states and their labels:

  References

  1. The Harwood Group, Yearning for Balance: Views of Americans on consumption, materialism, and the environment. Takoma Park, MD:Merck Family Fund, 1995.

  2. United Nations Development Program, Human Development Report. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.

  3. R. Layard, Happiness. London: Allen Lane, 2005.

  4. World Bank, World Development Report 1993: Investing in health. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993.

  5. European Values Study Group and World Values Survey Association, European and World Values Survey Integrated Data File, 1999–2001, Release 1. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research, 2005.

  6. United Nations Development Program, Human Development Report. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.

  7. G. D. Smith, J. D. Neaton, D. Wentworth, R. Stamler and J. Stamler, ‘Socioeconomic differentials in mortality risk among men screened for the Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial: I. White men’, American Journal of Public Health (1996) 86 (4): 486–96.

  8. R. G. Wilkinson and K. E. Pickett, ‘Income inequality and socioeconomic gradients in mortality’, American Journal of Public Health (2008) 98 (4): 699–704.

  9. L. McLaren, ‘Socioeconomic status and obesity’, Epidemiologic Review (2007) 29: 29–48.

  10. R. G. Wilkinson and K. E. Pickett, ‘Income inequality and population health: a review and explanation of the evidence’, Social Science and Medicine (2006) 62 (7): 1768–84.

  11. J. M. Twenge, ‘The age of anxiety? Birth cohort change in anxiety and neuroticism, 1952–1993’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (2007) 79 (6): 1007–21.

  12. M. Rutter and D. J. Smith, Psychosocial Disorders in Young People: Time trends and their causes. Chichester: Wiley, 1995.

  13. S. Collishaw, B. Maughan, R. Goodman and A. Pickles, ‘Time trends in adolescent mental health’, Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry (2004) 45 (8): 1350–62.

  14. B. Maughan, A. C. Iervolino and S. Collishaw, ‘Time trends in child and adolescent mental disorders’, Current Opinion in Psychiatry (2005) 18 (4): 381–5.

  15. J. M. Twenge, Generation Me. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006.

  16. S. S. Dickerson and M. E. Kemeny, ‘Acute stressors and cortisol responses: a theoretical integration and synthesis of laboratory research’, Psychological Bulletin (2004) 130 (3): 355–91.

  17. T. J. Scheff, ‘Shame and conformity: the defense-emotion system’, American Sociological Review (1988) 53: 395–406.

  18. H. B. Lewis, The Role of Shame in Symptom Formation. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1987.

  19. R. W. Emerson, Conduct of Life. New York: Cosimo, 2007.

  20. A. Kalma, ‘Hierarchisation and dominance assessment at first glance’, European Journal of Social Psychology (1991) 21 (2): 165–81.

  21. F. Lim, M. H. Bond and M. K. Bond, ‘Linking societal and psychological factors to homicide rates across nations’, Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology (2005) 36 (5): 515–36.

  22. S. Kitayama, H. R. Markus, H. Matsumoto and V. Norasakkunkit, ‘Individual and collective processes in the construction of the self: self-enhancement in the United States and self-criticism in Japan’, Journal of Personal and Social Psychology (1997) 72 (6): 1245–67.

  23. A. de Tocqueville, Democracy in America. London: Penguin, 2003.

  24. National Opinion Research Center, General Social Survey. Chicago: NORC, 1999–2004.

  25. R. D. Putnam, Bowling Alone: The collapse and revival of American community. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000.

  26. R. D. Putnam, ‘Social capital: measurement and consequences’, ISUMA: Canadian Journal of Policy Research (2001) 2 (1): 41–51.

  27. E. Uslaner, The Moral Foundations of Trust. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

  28. B. Rothstein and E. Uslaner, ‘All for all: equality, corruption and social trust’, World Politics (2005) 58: 41–72.

  29. J. C. Barefoot, K. E. Maynard, J. C. Beckham, B. H. Brummett, K. Hooker and I. C. Siegler, ‘Trust, health, and longevity’, Journal of Behavioral Medicine (1998) 21 (6): 517–26.

  30. S. V. Subramanian, D. J. Kim and I. Kawachi, ‘Social trust and self-rated health in US communities: a multilevel analysis’, Journal of Urban Health (2002) 79 (4, Suppl. 1): S21–34.

  31. E. Klinenberg, Heat Wave: A social autopsy of disaster in Chicago. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002.

  32. J. Lauer, ‘Driven to extremes: fear of crime and the rise of the sport utility vehicle in the United States’, Crime, Media, Culture (2005) 1: 149–68.

  33. K. Bradsher, ‘The latest fashion: fear-of-crime design’, New York Times, 23 July 2000.

  34. M. Adams, Fire and Ice. The United States, Canada and the myth of converging values. Toronto: Penguin (Canada), 2003.

  35. E. J. Blakely and M. G. Snyder, Fortress America: Gated communities in the United States. Washington, DC: Brookings Institute Press, 1997.

  36. I. Kawachi, B. P. Kennedy, V. Gupta and D. Prothrow-Stith, ‘Women’s status and the health of women and men: a view from the States’, Social Science and Medicine (1999) 48 (1): 21–32.

  37. H. J. Jun, S. V. Subramanian, S. Gortmaker and I. Kawachi, ‘A multilevel analysis of women’s status and self-rated health in the United States’, Journal of the American Medical Women’s Association (2004) 59 (3):172–80.

  38. OECD, International Development Statistics Online. OECD. Stat: http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/50/17/5037721.htm, 2005.

  39. L. Clark and A. Dolan, ‘The disturbed generation’, Daily Mail, 20 June 2007.

  40. C. Donnellan, Mental Wellbeing. Cambridge: Independence Educational Publishers, 2004.

  41. The Good Childhood Inquiry. Evidence Summary 5 – Health. London: Children’s Society, 2008.

  42. J. M. Perrin, S. R. Bloom and S. L. Gortmaker, ‘The increase of childhood chronic conditions in the United States’, Journal of the
American Medical Association (2007) 297 (24): 2755–9.

  43. Child and Adolescent Health Measurement Initiative. National Survey of Children’s Health. Data Resource Center on Child and Adolescent Health: http://www.childhealthdata.org (accessed 17 August 2006).

  44. Office for National Statistics, Psychiatric Morbidity among Adults Living in Private Households, 2000. London: HMSO, 2001.

  45. Hansard (House of Commons Daily Debates). Written answers to questions. (2005) 439: 22 Nov. 2005: Column 1798W.

  46. R. C. Kessler, W. T. Chiu, O. Demler, K. R. Merikangas and E. E. Walters, ‘Prevalence, severity, and comorbidity of 12-month DSM-IV disorders in the National Comorbidity Survey Replication’, Archives of General Psychiatry (2005) 62 (6): 617–27.

  47. T. L. Mark, K. R. Levit, J. A. Buck, R. M. Coffey and R. Vandivort-Warren, ‘Mental health treatment expenditure trends, 1986–2003’, Psychiatric Services (2007) 58 (8): 1041–8.