Viva Lewes Issue #137 February 2018

ON THIS MONTH: DISCUSSION
Mind the gap
The social value of income equality
“If you want to follow the
American Dream,” states epidemiologist
Richard Wilkinson,
in a 2011 TED talk on the
subject of the consequences of
income inequality, “go and live
in Denmark.”
Epidemiologists study and
analyse the distribution and
determinants of health and
disease conditions in defined
populations. Richard’s speciality
is the health consequences of
social inequality. He’s coming
to Lewes to talk about the
subject this month: I grab a
few minutes with him on the
telephone.
We discuss some eye-opening graphs he demonstrated
in that TED talk. One shows that, when
comparing developed market democracies, the
average Gross National Income of a country
bears no relation to the average life expectancy
there. Another shows that within any given country
difference in income has a significant impact
on life expectancy.
Richard also used UN data to analyse how much
richer the top 20% of a population are than the
bottom 20%. He found that in countries like Denmark,
Sweden, Norway and Japan, the figure is 3-4
times richer, whereas in the USA this rises to 8.5
times (the UK figure is 7.2, “at the wrong end of
the picture”). And here comes the really interesting
bit: when he compares how a series of social
problems (infant mortality, homicides, imprisonment,
unemployment, drug abuse, illiteracy rates
etc) correlates with each country’s inequality score,
he finds that the higher the inequality, the more
the country suffers from these problems. And thus:
it doesn’t matter how rich
a country is: the bigger the
difference between rich and
poor within it, the more social
corrosion there will be.
“On the other hand,” he says,
“if you live in a more equal
society you will live longer,
your kids will do better at
school, and you are less likely
to be a victim of violence, etc”
he says.
The countries at the less
unequal end of the scale have
got there by different means.
In the Scandinavian countries
there is a big difference in
income, but high taxation
evens things out. In Japan there is less of a spread
between high and low incomes to start with. “It
doesn’t matter how you get there, the result is the
same: less inequality, fewer social problems.”
I ask him if he thinks the result of the Brexit referendum
and Trump’s election victory reflect voters’
dissatisfaction with the gap between rich and poor.
“Yes,” he says, “it is in the background to both. It
has always been the case in periods of economic
polarisation between rich and poor, like in the 20s
and 30s. People take a dislike to the political elite
of all the major parties, and they choose almost
anything else.”
So what can we do to narrow the gap? “It will take
a long time. But as the public changes its opinion,
the political parties will shift their position. So a
lot will depend on how we vote.” Alex Leith
More for the Many, Less for the Few, does Labour
have the Policies to Tackle Inequality? All Saints
7.30pm 6th Feb, £5. Speakers are Richard, Polly
Toynbee and Angela Rayner, MP.
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