The Corrosive Impact of Social Economic Inequality

Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson's new book is The Inner Level.

Picket and Wilkenson are British epidemiologists who examine social and environmental causes for disease, both physical and mental.  In a previous classic entitled, The Spirit Level, they showed how there is a close correlation between social economic inequality and mass incarceration.

This new book documents that economic inequality damages everything it touches; both persons and societies -- see quote:

"inequality eats into the heart of our immediate, personal world, and the vast majority of the population are affected by the ways in which inequality becomes the enemy between us."

"Socioeconomic inequality matters because it strengthens the belief that some people are worth much more than others.  Those at the top seem hugely important and those at the bottom are seen as almost worthless.  In more unequal societies we come to judge each other more by status and worry more about how others judge us.  Research on 28 European countries shows that inequality increases status anxiety in all income groups, from the poorest ten percent to the richest tenth.  The poor are affected most but even the richest ten percent of the population are more worried about status in unequal societies."

"Another study of how people experience low social status in both rich and poor countries found that, despite huge differences in their material living standards, across the world people living in relative poverty had a strong sense of shame and self-loathing and felt that they were failures: being at the bottom of the social ladder feels the same whether you live in the UK, Norway, Uganda or Pakistan.  Therefore, simply raising material living standards is not enough to produce genuine wellbeing or quality of life in the face of inequality."

"The UK charity we founded, The Equality Trust, has resources for activists and a network of local groups.  In the USA, check out inequality.org.  Worldwide, the Fight Inequality Alliance works with more than 100 partners to work for a more equal world.  And look out for the new global Wellbeing Economy Alliance this autumn."

"Our own focus for change is to work for the increase of all kinds of economic democracy--everything from more cooperatives and employee-owned companies to stronger trade unions, more workers on company boards and the publication of pay-ratios.  We believe that extending democratic rights to workers embeds greater equality more firmly into any culture."