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The Spirit Level: Why Equal Societies Almost Always do Better

2010; Wiley; Volume: 24; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/j.1099-0860.2010.00290.x

1099-0860

Helen Roberts,

Social Policy and Reform Studies

The Spirit Level: Why Equal Societies Almost Always do Better By Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett London : Allen Lane , 2009 ISBN 9781846140396 , 331 pp, £20.00 (hb) When, in 1994, the children’s charity Barnardo’s commissioned and published Richard Wilkinson’s book Unfair shares: the effects of widening income differences on the welfare of the young, the then Secretary of State was not a happy bunny, and wrote to Barnardo’s Chief Executive to let him know. He stood firm. Whether Wilkinson’s hypothesis was correct or not, the question of whether income inequality increases problems for rich and poor alike, and affects children adversely was clearly a debate to be had. Fifteen years on, Wilkinson’s work is less controversial. Indeed, some of the pronouncements of the leader of the party that criticised Barnardo’s publication suggest that he may be something of a Wilkinson/Pickett convert himself. So whilst the gap between rich and poor may not have narrowed in the interim, despite a change at the top, at least the idea that inequality is bad for you, rich or poor, has moved from the margins to the mainstream. Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett have played an important part in this shift in thinking. Her Majesty’s Opposition talks the fair shares talk, though whether they will walk the fair shares walk, should they get the opportunity to do so, is another matter. In Government meanwhile, the Secretary of State for Health set up a comission to propose the most effective strategies for reducing health inequalities in England from 2010. The gap, however, is not simply between more and less equal individuals and societies, but the still yawning chasm in our capacity to use what we know in terms of narrowing that gap. Pickett and Wilkinson elegantly set out the arguments to support their thesis that across whole populations, our health and well-being is damaged by inequality. Their argument is no longer new, but this volume adds to the evidential material to make the point that the effects of inequality are corrosive right across the population. Some of what they write is more convincing than other bits of the evidence jigsaw — the comparative evidence on infant mortality is particularly strong. Among the evidence where one might want to know a bit more are some school-based experiments. One is an experiment by World Bank economists in 2004 with 321 high caste and 321 low caste boys from scattered rural villages in India. When they solved maze puzzles without knowing anything of other boys’ backgrounds, they performed equally well — indeed the low caste boys did slightly better. After a public announcement of fathers’ and grandfathers’ names, village and caste, the higher caste boys apparently did better. In another classroom experiment, blue and brown-eyed children were told that one group (guess which, the phrase ‘blue-eyed boy’ comes to mind) was lazy and stupid. The marks of the brown-eyed kids declined. When the information was reversed, so did performance. Quite how an experiment which the authors describe as leading blue-eyed children to assert their superiority over brown-eyed children, ‘treating them contemptuously’ (p.114) managed to make it through ethics approval is a puzzle, but it certainly adds to the evidence, were more needed, that treating people badly does no good. Also in the category of questionable evidence is the report of a study which apparently suggests: ‘To a degree, working class people resist the imposition of education and middle-class values, because being educated would require them to give up ways of being that they value’ (p.115). But for all the evidence that raises more questions than answers, their moral case is strong. This book is important not because it adds to the existing literature — but because it is a message that has started to gain some political traction and the authors are right to promote the message widely. Repetition — as the social marketers would no doubt agree — does have an effect. Where the book promises more than it (or any other book) can deliver is in terms of the offer to ‘show a way out of the environmental and social problems’. The authors suggest that ‘it falls to our generation to make one of the biggest transformations in human history’. Luckily for us, earlier generations were bolder. The late epidemiologist Jerry Morris pointed out to an interviewer: ‘The 1940s was the generation that said “Yes we can.” You need a national health service? You go out and do it’. Our problem is that we know more and more about what the problem is. Knowing how to do what needs to be done about it remains elusive.