Global Crisis/Innovation Blog
Equal Societies are Stronger
By Shlomo Maital
The Spirit Level: Equal Societies are Stronger!
After protest movements swept across the Arab nations in the Mideast, they have now spread to Israel. Some 100,000 young protesters gathered last Saturday night, in Israel’s major cities. As in the Arab Spring, it is unclear what the young Israelis seek. But reading between the lines and listening carefully, it becomes clear. They want a more equal, more fair, more just society.
Harvard Univ. economist John Kenneth Galbraith once write, “The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy: that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness”. Once an egalitarian society, Israel embraced raw capitalism, justified selfishness on grounds of efficiency and wealth – and its modern “conservatives” led by our Prime Minister helped Israel join America as a country with one of the most unequal income distributions in the world. (U.S. ranks third, Israel a close fourth; top of the list are Hong Kong and Singapore).
A 2009 book by two British epidemiologists, Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, titled The Spirit Level, reaches the following conclusion: above a certain level of GDP per capita, say, $20,000, income is uncorrelated with all the major social indicators, such as health,mental illness, violence, education, etc. What does correlate well with social wellbeing is (lack of) inequality. The more unequal the society, the worse its health and society, in every indicator. Their careful study includes a large cross-section of wealthy nations, along with the 50 American states.
Capitalists, you have run out of excuses. Inequality is not only morally wrong, it is socially and politically stupid, because it makes your people worse off. Read the book (you can download it from Amazon); the evidence is very strong.
As the late Harvard U. professor Albert Hirschman noted, there are two things you can do when faced with something you dislike: “Exit” (leave, quit, don’t buy it, drop out), or “Voice” (protest, organize, complain, act). For years, we have practiced “Exit”, in all parts of the world. Now, the young people are using their “Voice”. We wish them all well.
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August 10, 2011 at 8:15 am
wodehouselee
I have some issues with this book. I think it is unnecessarily blind to “culture”. It is all very well to celebrate Japan, Sweden and Norway as nations with a high level of “equality”; but it is possible to have a high level of equality and all be very poor, too.
Japan is overwhelmingly dominated by a single culture that celebrates hard work and thrift. The Scandinavian countries are a bit like that too; the model of the Protestant work ethic.
The Scandinavian and European nations are much “later” to have very high levels of immigration, than the USA. Of course inequality will be higher when you have many recent immigrants who have not yet achieved the social mobility that earlier immigrants did. Also, the annual “Index of Global Philanthropy and Remittances” shows that these people who are “poor” by US standards, remit part of their income back to Mexico and other countries of origin, and these flows of capital are quite large.
Is “Capitalist” inequality worse than Saudi Arabian inequality? Will Islamic nations EVER be anything other than “poor”, or if there is any wealth, will the most people have any opportunity of social mobility as in a “capitalist” country? Have you read “The True Believers” by V S Naipaul?
December 22, 2011 at 2:28 pm
Avshalom Shapira
I am not convinced the evidence regarding inequality is correct. Not only is there significant importance as to how you measure inequality, but I also recommend watching the following link that paints a different kind of picture on the matter: