The Spirit Level

Just came across this review in the Sunday Times on a book called :

The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett

In essence the authors of the book, Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett have come across a killer set of statistics. They compared incomes in the top 20 countries in the world as well as the 50 States and used this against social problems evident in those countries such as drug abuse, shortened life spans, murders, teenage pregnancy etc.

Perhaps not too surprisingly those countries or States that have the widest disparity of incomes also have the highest levels of social problems, and not just amongst the poor. The evidence also suggests that those in middle income brackets suffer from stress leading to depression and other illnesses.

Examples of unequal societies are the UK, most of the US and Portugal. Examples of more equal societies are Scandinavian countries and Japan.

The recommendation seems to be a higher level of taxation for those on higher levels of income or a legislation to restrict a maximum income. It's all rather interesting stuff, the current banking crisis affecting the world clearly shows that the liberal greed system endemic to western capitalism doesn't work.

Surely we are looking at clinical solutions based on solid evidence and this book would appear to offer a motion for change. The review in the Times by John Carey is here

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/non-fiction/article5859108.ece

The authors also have a website here

www.equalitytrust.org.uk/

It usually takes a long time for ideas like this to filter down to our politicians, but in this instance let's hope they make a exception.