Andrew Hacker, writing in The New York Times Review of Books, reviews a collection of books on social inequality, including one of my all time favorites, The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett.
His review also covers:
- The Darwin Economy: Liberty, Competition, and the Common Good by Robert H. Frank
- The Age of Austerity: How Scarcity Will Remake American Politics by Thomas Byrne Edsall
- Why Some Politicians Are More Dangerous Than Others by James Gilligan
The first paragraph of his review makes me know that the rest will be worth reading.
Imagine a giant vacuum cleaner looming over America’s economy, drawing dollars from its bottom to its upper tiers. Using US Census reports, I estimate that since 1985, the lower 60 percent of households have lost $4 trillion, most of which has ascended to the top 5 percent, including a growing tier now taking in $1 million or more each year.1 Some of our founders foresaw this happening. “Society naturally divides itself,” Alexander Hamilton wrote in The Federalist Papers, “into the very few and the many.” His coauthor, James Madison, identified the cause: “Unequal faculties of acquiring property,” he said, inherent in every human grouping. If affluence results from inner aptitudes, it might seem futile to try reining in the rich.
I reviewed The Spirit Level when it first appeared in early 2010. I described it as a brilliant and critically important new book that provided compelling evidence that, in fact, each of eleven different health and social issues—physical health, mental health, drug abuse, education, imprisonment, obesity, social mobility, trust and community life, violence, teenage births, and child well-being—fare substantially better in more equal societies.
Until I read the research assembled in The Spirit Level, it was difficult, if not impossible, to argue that the problem of income inequality in modern societies is about anything other than fairness. But, Wilkinson and Pickett methodically compare the scale of income differences in both different countries and different states within the U.S. to reveal just how much the fabric of society is affected by high levels of inequality. Research carried out since the early 1990s shows that many of our most pressing problems are worse in more unequal societies, and that societies with wider income disparities suffer more from a wide range of health and social ills.
The book ranks the quality of life in twenty-three countries, mainly European, but with Singapore, Israel, and the United States also on the list. To evaluate the well-being of each society, Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett use indices ranging from obesity and incarceration rates to teenage births and the feelings people have about their fellow countrymen.
Hacker notes that: “They then relate these variables to how income is distributed in each society. Here they deploy the Gini ratio, a three-digit coefficient purporting to measure the extent of income inequality within any grouping for which figures are available. The national Gini scores range from .230 in egalitarian Sweden to .478 in highly stratified Singapore, with the United States second highest at .450. Linking social indicators to economic disparities, the authors conclude that “reducing inequality is the best way of improving the quality of the social environment.” “As income gaps grow,” they write, “it’s not only the poor who suffer. Unequal societies not only bear “diseases of poverty,” but also “diseases of affluence.” The latter include cancer and cardiovascular disease as well as the afflictions of well-off people who are “anxiety-ridden,” “prone to depression,” and “seek comfort in overeating, obsessive shopping and spending.”
Robert Frank’s The Darwin Economy provides essential information and analysis to explain why so much of the nation’s money is flowing upward.
Hacker notes that The Darwin Economy explores how, “the products and enjoyments set before us have become increasingly enticing—including houses, vacations, television programs, video games, electronic devices, and the attractions of the Internet. In many cases, the rich acquire them first; since what they have and do becomes widely known, emulation descends down the line.
“Nor are these just Tiffany trinkets. Frank’s most vivid examples are newly built houses. As the very rich installed grander entrance halls and rarely used bathrooms, the professional classes felt they should have a semblance of such amenities. “By 2007,” Frank writes, “the median new single-family house built in the United States had an area of more than 2,300 square feet, some 50 percent more than its counterpart from 1970.” Indeed, it’s revealing that this expansion was happening as people were having fewer children. However, these homes—along with more elaborate wardrobes, holidays, and technical gear—are costly.”