Reddit Reddit reviews The Spirit Level New Edition: Why Equality Is Better For Everyone

We found 12 Reddit comments about The Spirit Level New Edition: Why Equality Is Better For Everyone. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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The Spirit Level New Edition: Why Equality Is Better For Everyone
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12 Reddit comments about The Spirit Level New Edition: Why Equality Is Better For Everyone:

u/Froolow · 28 pointsr/changemyview

The gap between rich and poor in developed countries (GDP > $4000/capita) is one of the best predictors - if not the best predictor - of violent crime, drug abuse, mental health problems, short life expectancy, depressed innovation, political non-participation, teenage birth rates, lower levels of trust and incarceration rates.

Not only that, but we're pretty sure that inequality actually causes these things, rather than simply being linked to them because we have very good data on the EU countries (which are all quite similar) and the American states (which are all very similar). We can trace the rise of these problems alongside the rise of inequality and link inequality-generating policies or price shocks to negative effects further along in time.

We can link this to a biological explanation in laboratory experiments; if chimps (or humans) are put in a situation where they are of 'low status' compared to everyone else in the room, they start to produce stress hormones which cause, for example, violence, overeating and stress-related mental health problems.

There is still some debate among proper academic sociologists whether there might be a third factor which causes both inequality and all the negative things stemming from inequality, and its not clear to me that the issue will ever be resolved beyond reasonable doubt (although the lab tests on hormone profiles are pretty convincing to me). It is also true inequality does not matter very much when overall income is very low, which is to say <$4000/capita. But there is certainly a correlation between stuff that 'matters' and the increasing gap between the rich and the poor, and very good evidence that this correlation is causal.

The Spirit Level is a good introductory book on the matter, being neither too technical nor too simplistic. Here is a quick summary by BBC news and here is a website where you can verify all the claims I have made, if you are so inclined.

u/YourLizardOverlord · 5 pointsr/ukpolitics

If inequality means that my neighbour has a Porsche Carrera GT in the driveway and I've just got a 10 year old Mondeo, big deal.

But that's not what it means in the UK.

  • People in the top income decile have a lot more political influence. So much for democracy.

  • People in the bottom income decile often have to live in shitty substandard housing.

  • So their kids have to go to the sort of school you tend to find in areas with shitty substandard housing, and they get an inferior education.

  • They can't afford stuff for their kids which give useful formative experiences, such as holidays and school trips.

  • So their kids are likely to end up being in a similar position when they grow up. This limits their opportunities.

  • And if they have any skills, it limits their usefulness to the rest of us. Instead of becoming useful contributing members of society, they end up competing for the dwindling pool of unskilled labour.

  • If you like capitalism, inequality is bad when it means that not enough people can afford to buy your products.

  • If you believe The Spirit Level then inequality also leads to a nastier, unhappier, more unpleasant society.

u/Suddenly_Elmo · 2 pointsr/politics

>ever increasing wealth disparity is to an extent normal and a sign of a healthy society. A rising tide really does raise all ships

These are both empirically untrue statements. As demonstrated pretty conclusively by The Spirit Level, the more unequal a society becomes, the less healthy it becomes in almost every measurable way (crime levels, life expectancy, health outcomes etc). Equally, despite huge economic growth and productivity increases, real wages have remained stagnant since the 60s.

u/Melack70 · 2 pointsr/WritingPrompts

Read 'The Spirit Level', it's basically this question!

u/[deleted] · 2 pointsr/socialism

A Brief History of Neoliberalism was the book I started with, it's pretty good and somewhat predicts the global collapse in 2007/2008, but I'm just waiting to order Capital In The 21st Century for a more up to date analysis of inequality and the consequences of such a system, Along with The Spirit Level: Why Equality is Better for Everyone

u/Etular · 2 pointsr/worldpolitics

> What's your revenue, asshole? Let me help you: zero. You're a social parasite. Instead of posting excruciatingly long and bullshity posts (not only this one, all of your posts are depressingly horse-manurey), maybe you could actually DO something useful.

I'm going to be heading to university this September, with the hope of working in academia - I don't have a job yet because, instead, I'm planning it out. Following university, I've be heading to the continent through European Voluntary Service, and possibly EURES as a means of finding a job. I have business start-up ideas, myself, written down, but I'm not that much of an idiot to try to create one either straight away, and especially not in this climate.

And, for the record, I contribute more to the economy than you do by a long shot, as I'm one of the people who contributed £22.7 billion to the UK economy in 2007/8, and have been similarly up to this year, where I am still volunteering.

Do I take any of that money home? No, but I certainly give to the economy, and take absolutely nothing from it, as I'm still living with my employed parents. If I were to rely on the welfare system, my contributions to it would make me fully entitled to do so, as would everyone else's - everyone is entitled to welfare; that's why it exists.

> And, just so that you'll feel shitty, my company is 15 years old, not a fucking startup like you arrogantly and dismissively suggested, employing young people from 15 fucking countries from around the world, making 200% above the EU average for the industry (which is a top-earning industry, btw), free in-house daycare, no overtime whatsoever, 30 days paid vacation, every Friday is optional non-working, etc, and my salary is below the team's average.

I don't feel shitty, actually, but I you seem to have some big issues - if your company was so successful, assuming you aren't one of the many individuals who deserve to be mocked on /r/QuitYourBullshit, then surely you wouldn't be so violently aggressive towards your potential consumers. What do you have to gain by claiming that they're all lazy, other than to promote right-wing biases that have already been thoroughly debunked?

Tell me, as I await for the experts to point holes in your fabricated story, what industry are you in? Dare I ask, what is your company, and where is it based? Do tell me your long-winded story about how "hard work" let to your success.

> You think social equality not possible? A lie? That all is lost? Fuck you! It is certainly impossible with people like you. Now, please do me a favor, and commit suicide. Now. Please. I can't stand human waste such as yourself.

That makes little sense to the topic, but okay. My opinion is, obviously, that social equality cannot work in a free market, capitalist system - a belief that is further reinforced by research such as that found in The Spirit Level, which draws upon other well-documented conclusions.

Enlighten me, where is your argument and sources? As all I see is a whiner getting an e-peen from preaching to the masses that they just "aren't trying hard enough". A person who eithr likes to pretend he has a business, or who created a business pre-depression and profited most from the collapse, and now likes to look down upon those less fortunate than themselves.

Whether nouveau riche and forgot his roots, or old money, all I see is a bitter, despicable man obsessed with schadenfreude - loving to laugh at those poorer than him, who couldn't succeed at the rat race, and having no sympathy because, quite frankly, "they deserved it".

> Instead of posting excruciatingly long and bullshity posts

You're clearly not a very literate man, are you? If you were, this wouldn't be a problem. I bet it burns you up inside to know I am better at this than you. Trust me, it only takes me about 5-10 minutes to write this - it's not a waste to see your reaction to this post.

___

On that note, to do a little snooping myself, I would never have expected someone who owns such an allegedly-multicultural 50-person company to be such a raging antisemite, but I guess that's just what business leaders are like these days. Your profile is a goldmine - it certainly isn't the only cultural gaffe you make, but most are deleted from their original source.

u/FuntCase89 · 1 pointr/IntuitiveDominant

United Kingdom.

My political views are... complicated. On political spectrum tests, I'm very much left-libertarian, but a lot of my views don't fit the typical leftist picture.

For me, politics should be about achieving one or more end goals, rather than blindly following any particular ideology.

For me, the main end goal which politics should achieve is achieving the greatest well-being for the greatest number of people, with safeguards in place using principles of distributive justice, to ensure that no minority group is made to suffer disproportionately for the benefit of the majority.

Despite my Marxist leanings, I'm actually in favour of a regulated free market that encourages growth of small businesses and discourages monopolies, as a successful free market requires competition. I like the idea of anarcho-syndicalism, in principle, but I believe that it's unworkable in a country with a high population density like the UK.

Certain things, in my opinion, cannot be improved with free market forces. Commodities with inflexible demand, like healthcare, utilities, public transportation, should be operated and funded by the state. I'm also a firm believer in the benefits of affordable state housing for the poorer sections of society. Under the current deregulated system, private landlords have been steadily increasing rents to suck up a higher proportion of people's incomes, transferring wealth from the poorest to the richest.

Wealth inequality is very strongly associated with poorer quality of life in many aspects for people in developed countries (the book The Spirit Level provides solid evidence that this is the case.)

Like most iNtuitive-doms here, I'm a very strong believer in personal autonomy, that the state should interfere as little as possible in the private lives of its citizens.

u/NeverHadTheLatin · 1 pointr/ukpolitics

I'd recommend reading The Spirit Level and The Price of Inequality.

There appears to be a correlation between inequality and rising crime rates, ill-health, and social deprivation.

Part of this comes from the choices people can and do make when they live in a society where there is a wide gulf between the top and the bottom. It helps to reinforce class distinctions which creates a barrier around social mobility.

Inequality isn't bad in-of-itself, but that's like saying having a McDonalds in every major town isn't bad in-of-itself - the issue is that it almost always exasberates existing social problems.

u/spiralxuk · 1 pointr/Economics

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Spirit-Level-Equality-Everyone/dp/0241954290

A summary of research done by epidemiologists about the effects of income inequality on societies. There's a good body of research on the subject.

u/willebrord_snellius · 1 pointr/Economics

Your question refers specifically to income equality, but regarding equality more generally I think you might find The Spirit Level an interesting read.