The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger (Hardcover)
Description
The eye-opening and headline-generating UK bestseller that shows how one single factor—the gap between its richest and poorest members—can determine the health and well-being of a society.
“This is a book with a big idea, big enough to change political thinking…In half a page [The Spirit Level] tells you more about the pain of inequality than any play or novel could.”—Sunday Times (UK ) It is well established that in rich societies the poor have shorter lives and suffer more from almost every social problem. Now a groundbreaking book, based on thirty years’ research, takes an important step past this idea. The Spirit Level shows that there is one common factor that links the healthiest and happiest societies: the degree of equality among their members. Not wealth; not resources; not culture, climate, diet, or system of government. Furthermore, more-unequal societies are bad for almost everyone within them—the well-off as well as the poor. The remarkable data assembled in The Spirit Level reveals striking differences, not only among the nations of the first world but even within America’s fifty states. Almost every modern social problem—ill-health, violence, lack of community life, teen pregnancy, mental illness—is more likely to occur in a less-equal society. This is why America, by most measures the richest country on earth, has per capita shorter average lifespan, more cases of mental illness, more obesity, and more of its citizens in prison than any other developed nation. Wilkinson and Pickett lay bare the contradiction between material success and social failure in today’s world, but they do not simply provide a diagnosis of our woes. They offer readers a way toward a new political outlook, shifting from self-interested consumerism to a friendlier, more sustainable society. The Spirit Level is pioneering in its research, powerful in its revelations, and inspiring in its conclusion: Armed with this new understanding of why communities prosper, we have the tools to revitalize our politics and help all our fellow citizens, from the bottom of the ladder to the top. Richard Wilkinson has played a formative role in international research on inequality, and his work has been published in ten languages. He is professor emeritus at the University of Nottingham Medical School. Kate Pickett is a senior lecturer at the University of York and a National Institute for Health Research Career Scientist. They live in North Yorkshire, England. It has been established that in rich societies, the poor have shorter lives and suffer more from almost every social problem. Now a groundbreaking book, based on thirty years’ research, takes an important step past this idea. The Spirit Level shows that there is one common factor that links the healthiest and happiest societies: the degree of equality among their members. Not wealth; not resources; not culture, climate, diet, or system of government. Furthermore, more-unequal societies are bad for almost everyone within them—the well-off as well as the poor.The remarkable data assembled in The Spirit Level reveals striking differences, not only among the nations of the first world but even within America’s fifty states. Almost every modern social problem—ill-health, violence, lack of community life, teen pregnancy, mental illness—is more likely to occur in a less-equal society. This is why America, by most measures the richest country on earth, has per capita shorter average lifespan, more cases of mental illness, more obesity, and more of its citizens in prison than any other developed nation.
Wilkinson and Pickett lay bare the contradiction between material success and social failure in today’s world, but they do not simply provide a diagnosis of our woes. They offer readers a way toward a new political outlook, shifting from self-interested consumerism to a friendlier, more sustainable society. The Spirit Level is pioneering in its research, powerful in its revelations, and inspiring in its conclusion: Armed with this new understanding of why communities prosper, we have the tools to revitalize our politics and help all our fellow citizens, from the bottom of the ladder to the top. "This is a book with a big idea, big enough to change political thinking . . . [It] charts the level of health and social problems—as many as they could find reliable figures for—against the level of income inequality in 20 of the world’s richest nations, and in each of the 50 United States. They allocate a brief chapter to each problem, supplying graphs that display the evidence starkly and unarguably. What they find is that, in states and countries where there is a big gap between the incomes of rich and poor, mental illness, drug and alcohol abuse, obesity and teenage pregnancy are more common, the homicide rate is higher, life expectancy is shorter, and children’s educational performance and literacy scores are worse . . . [Wilkinson and Pickett] emphasise that it is not only the poor who suffer from the effects of inequality, but the majority of the population. For example, rates of mental illness are five times higher across the whole population in the most unequal than in the least unequal societies in their survey. One explanation, they suggest, is that inequality increases stress right across society, not just among the least advantaged. Much research has been done on the stress hormone cortisol, which can be measured in saliva or blood, and it emerges that chronic stress affects the neural system and in turn the immune system. When stressed, we are more prone to depression and anxiety, and more likely to develop a host of bodily ills including heart disease, obesity, drug addiction, liability to infection and rapid ageing . . . The different social problems that stem from income inequality often, Wilkinson and Pickett show, form circuits or spirals. Babies born to teenage mothers are at greater risk, as they grow up, of educational failure, juvenile crime, and becoming teenage parents themselves. In societies with greater income inequality, more people are sent to prison, and less is spent on education and welfare . . . The authors’ method is objective and scientific, so that the human distress behind their statistics mostly remains hidden. But when they quote from interviews conducted by social researchers, passion and resentment flood into their book . . . The Spirit Level turns personal intuitions into publicly demonstrable facts."—The Sunday Times (UK )
"An intellectual flagship of post-crisis compassion, this reader-friendly fusion of number-crunching and moral uplift has helped steer a debate about the route to a kinder, fairer nation. To the authors, 'more equal societies almost always do better' for all. Flatter incomes, stronger communities and a more level playing-field of life-chances help every citizen, rich and poor alike, since our species 'enjoys co-operation and trust'. As Wilkinson and Pickett roll out graph after graph to prove that the ultra-competitive Anglo-sphere wallows in misery and crime while Scandinavia and Japan enjoy egalitarian bliss, some sceptics might worry about an overload of tendentious statistics. Purely as an ethical manifesto, the book hits far harder. Yet in Britain it still seems as hard as ever for politicians to stand up to 'the tiny minority of the rich'."—Boyd Tonkin, The Independent (UK)
"The evidence, here painstakingly marshaled, is hard to dispute."—The Economist (UK)
"The argument is a powerful counter to any simple equation of social progress and the advance of GDP."—Financial Times (UK)
"Compelling and shocking. All free marketeers should be made to memorise it from cover to cover . . . [Wilkinson and Pickett], both medical epidemiologists—have published strong evidence to prove that in unequal societies everyone suffers—even those who think they have it made for generations to come. They looked at 20 of the richest nations and compared various social and health problems, measuring those against an index of equality. The US, Portugal (feudal in the near past) and the UK are the most unequal nations, with the top 20 per cent earning nine times more than the bottom 20 per cent. Japan, Finland, Norway and Sweden are where the money gap is smallest. Teenage pregnancies, mental illness, life expectancy, obesity, illiteracy, homicide, [and] crime are all worse in the states of greater inequality and not only for the poorest but for all citizens and residents. Spain is more equal than its neighbour, Portugal and you can see how vastly different are the social ills in the two countries. There is even evidence that in unequal societies, the people have higher levels of stress hormones . . . The US spends more on healthcare than anywhere in the world but a baby in Greece has a higher life expectancy than a baby in the planet's richest nation. The prison population in Britain has doubled since 1990 and quadrupled in the States since the 1970s. Trust and cohesion are abysmally low in these states. The sense of injustice on the one hand and paranoia on the other makes social ease impossible . . . The poor were kept wretched as they were during the Industrial Revolution and the days of Imperial glory. Inequality was a price happily paid for these capitalist adventures and class, like caste, became absolute destiny."—Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, The Independent (UK)
"Wilkinson and Pickett make the general point that inequality, which they define as vast differences in income between the rich and the poor within the same society, is the cause of just about every social problem from infant mortality rate to personal happiness. Readers with scant knowledge of issues like stratification, poverty, or health disparities will find the discussions of correlations between such variables as pregnancy to be enlightening . . . Recommended [for] general readers, or for graduate students."—Choice magazine
"Predatory capitalism makes some of us poor and some of us rich, of course, but it also makes most of us sick, crime-ridden and mad—or so two British social scientists contend. In a scholarly work that is already exciting widespread discussion outside the academy, Wilkinson and Pickett show that by nearly every measure of the quality of life, societies with high income inequality fare more poorly than those with a more even distribution of wealth. In the United States, writes former labor secretary Robert Reich in the foreword, the top one percent of earners has tripled its share of the economy since 1980—when, not coincidentally, Ronald Reagan came to power and began to deregulate everything. Reich scorns the thought that the Obama administration should be branded socialist for wanting to return some social controls to 1980 and even 1990 levels. Wilkinson and Pickett are measured and even cautious in advancing their interpretations of the data, which are full of curiosities. In unequal countries, for instance, women suffer from greater levels of certain kinds of mental illness than do men, and some diseases—particularly heart-related illnesses and obesity—seem strongly correlated to disparities in wealth distribution. Everywhere, the links between legalized robbery and other kinds of crime are strong. The authors relate much of the problem to the overall phenomenon of anxiety—perhaps not the most scientific of diagnostic words, but one that does the job. Ultimately, they urge a return to the concept that liberty and equality are connected—the idea that they are not 'seems to have emerged during the Cold War.' A book full of dangerous ideas and useful statistics, all worthy of attention, discussion and action."—Kirkus Reviews
"Popular wisdom would tell us that poverty is the breeding ground for many of society's ills. But British academics Wilkinsonand Pickett argue otherwise. They've woven together a great deal of international research to show that inequality, not poverty per se, is what contributes most to social problems. The authors not only compare data from a range of countries but also gather data from all 50 states to verify that relationships that exist on a national level also exist on a more local scale. The first element examined is trust as a measure of community life and social relations. Once it is established that people in unequal societies don't trust one another, the stage is set to examine a host of other dystopian problems from mental health to teenage births to social mobility. In this fascinating sociological study, the authors do an excellent job of presenting the research, analyzing nuances, and offering policy suggestions for creating more equal and sustainable societies. For all readers, specialized or not, with an interest in understanding the dynamics today between economic and social conditions."—Carol J. Elsen, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater Library, Library Journal
"Wilkinson and Pickett make an eloquent case that the income gap between a nation's richest and poorest is the most powerful indicator of a functioning and healthy society. Amid the statistics that support their argument (increasing income disparity sees corresponding spikes in homicide, obesity, drug use, mental illness, anxiety, teenage pregnancies, high school dropouts—even incidents of playground bullying), the authors take an empathetic view of our ability to see beyond self-interest. While there are shades of Darwinism in the human hunt for status, there is evidence that the human brain—with its distinctively large neocortex—evolved the way it has because we were designed to be attentive to, depend on, and be depended on by others. Wilkinson and Pickett do not advocate one way or the other to close the equality gap. Government redistribution of wealth and market forces that create wealth can be equally effective, and the authors provide examples of both. How societies achieve equality, they argue, is less important than achieving it in the first place. Felicitous prose and fascinating findings make this essential reading."—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Wilkinson and Pickett make a valuable contribution in enthusiasm and evidence, both of which will help fuel any effort to squeeze down the widening inequalities of our era.”—Boston Review
About the Author
Richard Wilkinson has played a formative role in international research on inequality, and his work has been published in ten languages. He is professor emeritus at the University of Nottingham Medical School. Kate Pickett is a senior lecturer at the University of York and a National Institute for Health Research Career Scientist. They live in North Yorkshire, England.
