The Inner Level
Page 29
CREATING A NEW SOCIETY
Greater equality is at the heart of creating a better society because it is fundamental to the quality of social relations in society at large. Social status systems among humans (like dominance ranking systems or pecking orders among animals) are orderings based on power; they ensure privileged access to resources for those at the top, regardless of the needs of others. The fact that humans, like members of any other species, all have the same basic needs means that there is always the question of whether or not to share access to scarce resources; whether to co-operate as allies or compete as rivals. Do we want to live in a society based on co-operation and reciprocity, or competition and rivalry?
In Chapter 5 we mentioned that in the seventeenth century Thomas Hobbes placed conflict avoidance – the ‘warre of each against all’ – at the centre of his political philosophy. He believed that the only way to keep the peace was to have a sovereign with absolute power to enforce it. What Hobbes could not know is that in human prehistory, long before the development of government, societies were based on systems of food sharing and a high degree of equality. People engaged in these activities, as Marshall Sahlins has pointed out, to keep the peace and avoid the Hobbesian conflict for scarce resources.210 The reason he said ‘gifts make friends and friends make gifts’ is because gifts symbolize – in the most concrete terms – that the giver and receiver recognize, respect and respond to each other’s needs.210 The result, as we saw earlier, was that for more than 90 per cent of human existence, we lived typically in societies with a level of equality which seems to modern eyes scarcely credible.216, 218 But people today still share food and eat together socially because it is an expression of relationships built on sharing, rather than on competing for access to basic necessities. The same message is, as we saw, also enshrined in the major world religions.
In effect, we have deep within our psyche two fundamentally different social strategies (the two sides of human nature outlined in Chapter 5): one predicated upon friendship and the other based on ideas of superiority and inferiority. We all know how to make and value friends and we all know how snobbishness, downward prejudice and social climbing work. The extent to which we deploy and are subject to these strategies has repercussions throughout the rest of social life; it colours our psychology and social customs.
The strength of the social hierarchy and the importance of status serve as indicators of how far a society departs from equality. The further the departure from mutuality, reciprocity and sharing, the stronger the basic message that we will each have to fend for ourselves. We are pushed towards more antisocial forms, becoming more concerned with status and self-advancement, while community life, trust and our willingness to help each other all decline.
At the heart of progressive politics there has always been an intuition that inequality is divisive and socially corrosive. Now we have the internationally comparable data which proves that intuition true. Moving both towards sustainability and a society liberated from class divisions and status hierarchies is part of the same process: a transition to a society which is better for all of us. The challenge is to open up a new era of improvements in well-being – no longer the diminishing returns from economic growth, but real gains from what greater equality does for our confidence, our relationships with others and for the quality of the physical and social environment. By reducing the extraordinarily wasteful status competition that drives conspicuous consumption, we will also increase our willingness to act for the common good.
Let us now summarize the four key improvements in the quality of life which can take us towards a more fulfilling and sustainable way of life. First, through greater equality, we gain a world where status matters less, where the awkward divisions of class begin to heal, where social anxieties are less inhibiting of social interaction and people are less plagued by issues of confidence, self-doubt and low self-esteem. This would, in turn, reduce our need for the drink and drugs we so often use to cope with anxiety and ease social contact. There would be less need for narcissistic self-presentation, less need to overspend for the sake of appearances. In short, we move towards a more relaxed social life, with stronger communities, in which it is easier to enjoy the pleasures of friendship and conviviality and gain a society better able to meet our basic social needs.
Second, we move from a society that maximizes consumption and status, to a society that uses each increase in productivity to gain more leisure and reduce the demands of work. The New Economics Foundation has suggested that we should aim to work only twenty-one hours a week. Large international differences in working hours do not seem to affect GNP per head.482 We need more time for family and for our children, more time to care for each other, for friends, for the elderly and to enjoy community life. In future, increases in productivity should be translated into reductions in working hours instead of increased income and profit. If we had a long-term increase in labour productivity of 2 per cent a year, in ten years’ time all could enjoy the same material standard of living as we do now but with an extra day off work a week. And given that the average age gap between parents and children is around thirty years, the lives of our children would be transformed. But with more workplace democracy and shorter hours, the productivity growth rate – which has been so poor in the UK – might rise to 3 per cent a year. That would give us an extra day off a week within seven years, and the working week could be halved within twenty-four years. If, as some studies suggest, almost half of all jobs may be vulnerable to computerization and automation,483 cutting hours and sharing work will become increasingly important if we are to enjoy the benefits of technical progress. The alternative is likely to be a growing division between the unemployed and the overworked.
Third is the improvement in the quality of working life resulting from the extension of democracy into employment. The current anachronistic system, in which the control of companies – groups of people – can be bought and sold, must be phased out. The normal rigid ranking system, with line management and institutionalized hierarchies, excludes people from control over their work and any say in whose interests it serves. Working in democratic institutions such as co-operatives and employee-owned businesses (with or without community and consumer representatives), means that management becomes answerable to employees. Hierarchy would become overlaid with social obligations, and much smaller income differences would reduce status divisions. The next great stage in human development must therefore be the extension of democracy into working life. Work should be where we find a sense of self-worth and the experience of making a valued contribution. We can no longer accept a system of employment which reduces the lives of so many to a demeaning shadow of their potential.
Fourth are all the health and social benefits of living in a more equal society. More equal societies bring major reductions in almost all the problems that become more common lower down the social ladder. A more equal society would enjoy better physical and mental health, higher standards of child well-being, less violence, fewer people in prison, less drug addiction and more equal opportunities for children. A more equal society is conducive to the psychosocial well-being of whole populations.
As well as making real and tangible improvements to the quality of our lives, these improvements in the social functioning of our societies will put environmental sustainability within our reach. By reducing status insecurities we will reduce not only the most obvious conspicuous consumption, but also the huge volume of wasteful consumption driven more defensively by the attempts to maintain standards and avoid falling behind others. We may become more willing to repair goods instead of replacing them, and designs might facilitate that. With the decline of individualism and the strengthening of community life, we may feel less need for private cars and other forms of private provision. But above all, greater equality is likely to mean that our economic and political interests are less divergent and we find it easier to act for the common good.
The changes proposed are n
either impractical nor idealistic; they are a necessary response to the damage inequality is already doing and the traumatic dislocation which climate change holds in store for us. Although recent decades have seen dramatic reductions in world poverty (those living on less than $2 a day) attributable to economic growth in developing countries, that progress will be seriously threatened if we fail to reduce carbon emissions and protect the environment. And in the rich countries, where measures of well-being are no longer responsive to economic growth, present structures are evidently not an efficient way of producing human well-being.
A shared conception of a better society gives coherence to policy. A vision of a better future can also reinvigorate some of the idealism and principle which so often seems to have become submerged in a politics driven by opportunism and expediency. Whole populations have for too long been pushed around by unrecognized but extremely powerful social forces. We hope that a better, scientific and evidence-based understanding of them will help us address the very serious human and environmental problems they have created.
Change on the scale needed, however, can only be achieved if large numbers of people commit themselves to achieving it. Sometime after the late 1970s, it seems, progressive politics either lost its conviction that a better form of society was possible or lost the ability to convince people that politics was the route to achieving it. The result was the almost uncontested rise of neoliberalism. Now, facing the evidence of global warming and calamitous climate change, the world is in need of a radical alternative, a clear vision of a future society which is not only environmentally sustainable, but in which the real quality of life is better for the vast majority. Only then will people commit themselves to the long task of bringing that society into being.
Appendices
Resources
THE EQUALITY TRUST
If we want to build a better society, it is essential we take action. In 2009, along with Bill Kerry, we co-founded The Equality Trust, now a registered charity in England and Wales, which works to improve the quality of life in the UK by reducing economic inequality. Working with others to build a social movement for change, The Equality Trust analyses and disseminates the latest research, promotes robust evidence-based arguments and supports a dynamic network of local groups. Please visit us at www.equalitytrust.org.uk. Online you can sign up for the newsletter, find information and resources, ways to get involved and news of events. Or you can find us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/equalitytrust, or follow us on Twitter: @equalitytrust.
THE WELLBEING ECONOMY ALLIANCE (WE-ALL)
WE-All is a new global campaigning organization set up to create a Global New Economy Movement aimed at building sustainable well-being, rather than maximizing GDP. Although the need for an economic transformation is widely recognized, it is not happening fast enough. Bringing together the many exemplary but often disconnected initiatives already in progress round the world, WE-All will convene seven meta-movements centred variously on businesses, faith and values groups, academia and think-tanks, civil society organizations, governments, places such as cities, regions and localities already implementing new economy initiatives, and institutional innovators. WE-All has been joined by a growing number of partner organizations and, with the leadership of the Scottish government and encouraged by the OECD, it has brought together a group of governments, including those of Costa Rica, New Zealand, Slovenia and Scotland, committed to pioneering the implementation of new economy proposals. With a global citizens’ movement, it will develop and disseminate new narratives to build a Global New Economy Movement. With the growing influence of WE-All and other like-minded organizations, we look forward to seeing a more rapid transition to economic systems devoted to sustainable well-being (wellbeingeconomy.org).
OTHER USEFUL LINKS
There are many excellent websites and online resources for readers interested in inequality research and campaigning, a few of the best are:
• Inequality.org A project of the Institute for Policy Studies, a think-tank based in Washington, DC.
• http://toomuchonline.org/ A monthly exploration of excess and inequality, in the United States and throughout the world, also from the Institute for Policy Studies.
• http://www.resolutionfoundation.org/ A UK think-tank that works to improve the living standards of people on low to middle incomes.
• http://highpaycentre.org/ A UK think-tank focused on pay at the top of the income scale; campaigns to reduce the income gap between the super-rich and the rest of the population.
• http://policy-practice.oxfam.org.uk/our-work/inequality International poverty charity Oxfam now campaigns to reduce extreme inequality.
For links between inequality, climate change and alternative economic policy, try:
• The New Economics Foundation: http://www.neweconomics.org
• The Alliance for Sustainability and Prosperity: http://www.asap4all.com
A List of Health and Social Outcomes Affected by Income Inequality
This table lists some of the different health problems and social issues that researchers have found to be significantly linked to income inequality, published in peer-reviewed journal papers. The references are examples of such studies – for some outcomes there are hundreds of examples, for others only one published study. This is neither a comprehensive list of outcomes nor a comprehensive list of studies, but is to help readers who want to explore the academic research; where possible the citations are to relevant reviews, which cover numerous studies.
Health/social outcome Shown in international comparisons Shown in comparisons of US states Shown in longitudinal or time series analyses
Physical Health (for a causal review of the health-inequality literature, see Pickett and Wilkinson 20153)
Life expectancy Wilkinson and Pickett 20062 Babones 2008484 Clarkwest 2008485 Zheng 2012486 Pickett and Wilkinson 20153
Infant mortality Ram 2005490
Ram 2006488
Kim and Saada 2013487 Kim and Saada 2013487 Torre and Myrskyla 2014489
Mortality (adult) Wilkinson and Pickett 20062 Ram 2005490 Zheng 2012486
Torre and Myrskyla 2014489
Obesity Pickett, Kelly et al. 2005171 Pickett and Wilkinson 2012491
HIV infection Drain, Smith et al. 2004492 Buot, Docena et al. 2014493
Mental Health and Well-being
Mental illness (all) Pickett and Wilkinson 201059
Ribeiro et al. 201760 Ribeiro, Bauer et al. 201760
Depression/depressive symptoms Steptoe, Tsuda et al. 200794
Patel, Burns et al. 2018512 Messias, Eaton et al. 201196
Patel, Burns et al. 2018512
Schizophrenia Burns, Tomita et al. 2014101
Psychotic symptoms Johnson, Wibbels et al. 2015102
Status anxiety Layte and Whelan 201457
Self-enhancement Loughnan, Kuppens et al. 2011112
Narcissism Wilkinson and Pickett 2017123
Substance use or deaths Wilkinson and Pickett 2009494
Cutright and Fernquist 2011168 Wilkinson and Pickett 2007496
Gray 2016495
Problem gambling Wilkinson and Pickett 2017123
Social Cohesion
Trust/social capital Freitag and Bühlmann 2009497
Elgar and Aitken 201173 Kawachi and Kennedy 1997498 Uslaner and Brown 200540
Solidarity Paskov and Dewilde 201239
Agreeableness de Vries, Gosling et al. 2011105
Civic participation Lancee and Van de Werfhorst 201237
Cultural participation Szlendak and Karwacki 2012377
Ambiguous stereotyping Durante, Fiske et al. 2013154
Social comparisons Cheung and Lucas 2016499
Homicides Ouimet 2012500
Daly 2016*38 Glaeser, Resseger et al. 2008501
Daly 2016*38 Rufrancos, Power et al. 2013410
Daly 2016*38
Imprisonment Wilkinson and Pickett 2007496 Wilkinson and Pickett 2007496
Women’s status Wilkinson and Pickett 2009494 Kawachi and Kennedy 1999502
Children’s Life Chances
Child well-being Pickett and Wilkinson 2007189 Pickett and Wilkinson 2007189 Pickett and Wilkinson 2015190
Bullying Elgar, Craig et al. 2009233
Child maltreatment Eckenrode, Smith et al. 2014247
Educational attainment Wilkinson and Pickett 2007496 Wilkinson and Pickett 2007496
Dropping out of school Wilkinson and Pickett 2007496
Social mobility Corak 2016341 Chetty, Hendren et al. 2014503
Teenage pregnancy Pickett, Mookherjee et al. 2005335 Kearney and Levine 2012504
Environmental Issues (for comprehensive analysis and review, see Boyce 1994505 and Cushing, Morello-Frosch et al. 2015506)
Biodiversity Mikkelson, Gonzalez et al. 2007508
Holland, Peterson et al. 2009507
Water/meat/petrol consumption Stotesbury and Dorling 2015509
CO2 emissions/air pollution Drabo 2011510 Cushing, Morello-Frosch et al. 2015506 Jorgenson, Schor et al. 2015511
Status consumption Walasek and Brown 2015421 Walasek and Brown 2015422
Compliance with international environmental agreements Wilkinson, Pickett et al. 2010414