A more equal society would be good for people at the top as well as the middle and bottom.

[edam]

Caught this author on Start the Week. "The epidemiologist RICHARD WILKINSON believes that more equal societies produce better health and happiness for all of us, not just the poor. He describes how improving the distribution of wealth contributes to lower crime rates, lower disease rates and less anxiety about status. It can even help to address global warming. His book The Spirit Level is co-authored with Kate Pickett and published by Allen Lane."

Link here where you can listen to the programme he's at the start.

bump just in case there is someone out there who is interested!

I am interested! I wasn't listening in a very concentrated way this morning, but thought he was very good from what I heard. Thanks for the link - will listen again.

Yes, I heard a bit of this too with interest. The bit about crime reduction seems pretty logical, doesn't it - equal access to education and opportunity leads to fewer people on the 'outer' committing crime through ignorance, envy, desperation, all of the above. Surely less inter-class/economic group tension too.

There's a flaw in this plan though, it's greed. There's always going to be people that want more or are unwilling to work to better themselves. What happens then? The bankers didn't screw up the country for our benefit did they, it was greed.

I love RW.

And he was nice once about a report I'd written and persuaded him to read

I think that there are genuinely very few people not willing to work or better themselves and that a lot would if they had equal access to decent education and housing/opportunities.

It's a snowball effect too, seeing more people do well and gain something makes others want that.

The gap between rich and poor has never been wider and there's too many with no hope of improvement at the moment.

It would definitely help with crime too.

Yes, I'm afraid Scrooged - Greed will bugger up the idea of an equal society every single time.

I know someone who grew up extremely poor.. His dream was to pay the highest bracket of tax. The day he made it, he hired an accountant and became a tax exile.

I don't much blame him, but you can see my point.

I don't think it's just bankers though - should footballers earn the wages they do? Or TV presenters?

Our whole society is messed up, because people without brains or talent can sell stories (I'm thinking Kerry Katona, Jade GOody, Calum Best) and earn more than a graduate whose worked hard, got a couple of degrees and doing a good job in industry.

Laurie- but there is a huge problem in the Uk and that's the size of the place.

Everyone works hard, but the house prices / land prices go up exponentially cos they are in such short supply so in lots of cases, it doesn't matter how hard you work, you are still buggered.

Well, that's how I sometimes feel bout the SE.

I agree Haribosmummy. Who are our childrens role models?? The scientist? The doctor? The lawyer? NO! Some WAG, some woman who's been on big brother? A footballer? It's the wrong message to be sending to impressionable children. I'm not surprised children here are miserable, they are overtested and bombarded with images of rich people in big houses all the time. It's sad.

The rich just get richer in our country, sod everyone else, this is the attitude here. I thought Labour were supposto benefit all!

Well, I'm a scientist... One with 3 degrees and 10 years solid experience (with many successes and several awards) and I'd struggle to get anyone to pay me over £40K (and that would be for a LONG week, one requiring me to opt out of the working hours diretive nd also requiring overseas travel - so most of my wage would be eaten up with childcare)

Yet, if I starved myself / got silicone boobs and a nose job (In my case, the nose job would be very neccessary!), I could get my tits out on a reality show and earn more than I could otherwise in a year...

Got to be something wrong with that.

Oh, and I wouldn't need to worry about up front costs - cos the magazines selling the pictures of my tits would pay for the surgery in the first place. NICE

There is. It's disgusting!! What does it tell our children though?

Scientists are cool by the way!

Isn't it communist society's where everyone is worth the same and paid the same? Doesn't work too well there.

To be fair, scrooged, my Dh works in Russia, and it doesn't work too well there at all!! - same old greed (but more money shared around fewer people, IYSWIM) gets in the way.

Ds (don't ask) had an idea of making society where everyone was paid in accordance to the job they did for others, a banker who makes money is paid less then a doctor because of their contribution to society IYSWIM. It was a nice idea.

I'm raising a communist!!!

He has the right idea, though...

I have SOOO many friends from 'home' who think nothing of spending £100 each week going to football matches but REFUSE to pay to see a Dr or dentist.... Must have the latest sports kit, but don't want to pay out for school uniforms....

But, exactly, WHO are you going to call in your hour of need? Not bloody Michael Owen or Alan Sheerer!!!!!

I find it quite depressing (more so since becoming a mum and finding it impossible to find reasonable work!!)

I have a degree in Law, a MSc (nearly) and can't find a job as the hours are silly. I've resorted to training as a radiographer so we have an income.

£100 on a football match when there are children still living in poverty, it's rediculous!

Thanks for posting this - it's obvious really, isn't it?

There are so many areas in which inequality can be rectified. We're all affected by inequality. I don't especially want to work 60 hours a week every week. I don't enjoy nervousness around crime.

I'm sure that the mainspring of inequality is around education.

The article is quite weak on causation, though, isn't it? It's all very well decrying inequality, we all abhor that, but what are the causes and how can we fix it?

Big debate this but RW is on trend
given that the dominant theme in the last 15 years
was that inequality does not matter
as long as everyone gets richer.

I don't think it's education, it starts much earlier then this. Babies of poorer parents are often underweight and premature (from research I have done). They are brought to cold houses, normally rented so their parents have limites rights. Sometimes damp and overcrowded.

Most crime is caused be greed though, people have too much, some not enough. The morals behind it are not helpful either.

It's a nice idea, but there's yet to be a societal system which actually puts it effectively into practice.

Humans are very fond of the ideal, but the practicalities are what do us in.

There's too many 'what if' or 'buts', this is what ruins things.

It's like arguments that say 'A world without war is a good thing'.

Well, yeah. I'd be a pacifist except for that scumbag rampaging over there for his own not-for-the-common-good reasons.

That's England then! "Rule Britannia, Britannia Rule the world......"

It's down to greed again.

It's whoever, country, person, whatever. When it gets down to brass tacks, there will always be a fly in the ointment. We're all the greedy sod at one point, every one of us.

For some of us it's reasonably innocuous because it's just cream cakes. For others it has bigger implications. The only real question is whether or not we try and control that impulse for greed ourselves, or have it imposed on us externally.

The most workable solutions are a mixture of both - totally external solutions are tyranny, totally internal solutions will still not change that some people just choose self first.