There’s this fantastic book by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett called The Spirit level: Why more equal societies almost always do better that I can only recommend.
I was always been under the (false) impression that the goal of capitalism by creating wealth was to increase the whole society’s standard of leaving bringing comfort and wellbeing to the majority of us. Turns out I am completely wrong and this book, result of 30 years research, gives us a completely new insight on the link between a nation’s wealth and the well-being of its inhabitants.
There is a minimum economic level a country must meet for its inhabitants to enjoy decent life expectancy food availability and lodging. No one argues with this. But when it comes to social problems such as teenage pregnancy, imprisonment, obesity, violence and mental diseases no one has ever been able to pinpoint the reason why richer countries suffer more of these than poor countries.
It appears that it’s inequality within one society that triggers these problems. “Low social status itself, or low relative income compared to others in the same society” is the problem.
“In Japan and Nordic countries incomes of the top 20 per cent are three or four times as big as the incomes of the poorest 20 per cent. In more unequal countries such as the US, Portugal and Britain the richest 20 per cent are 8 or 9 times as rich as the poorest 20 per cent.” Now the impact of this is tremendous looking at the figures. “Mental illness is three times more common in more unequal countries than in the most equal, obesity rates are twice as high, rates of imprisonment eight times higher and teenage births increase tenfold!”
Why such difference? Well in the race for more and more and more than my neighbour comes the status craving. We look at who has more than us and make it a personal goal as to which caste we should belong. All of this comes fuelled by envy and mistrust. Not exactly what’s recommended for piece of mind! Not achieving a certain status leads to self-deprecation seeds of anxiety and depression. Isolation entailed by this pursuit reinforces the latter. The only way to attain this status is through consumption, buying more, saving less, more debts more work and overall an endless pursuit of a goal destined to upgrade at mid-race.
The mistrust is an important element. When you look at more equal societies you can see that they are more collaborative with less emphasis on status. In Nordic countries redistribution and benefits are more prevalent. In no competition with your neighbour you feel closer to him, understand his issues as he understands yours. The other becomes ally, support and not an enemy or a fantasised model that requires cloning in order to achieve happiness.
We’ve witnessed how some insane inequalities have triggered problems for the entire society. Think of the traders and their bonuses, their raison d’etre being creating more wealth whatever the risks to take with our money.
This book is not about setting up a utopian community, defending communism or anything like this. It simply pinpoints that the common trend for wider and wider gaps between rich and poor in any given society is the source of a lot of social issues. A trend the political could reverse and control should we all take full conscience of it and press for a change.
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I believe in sharing Knowledge as an asset to survive this insane gap and make things progress all together through collaboration. I want to believe we’re on the way to turn what could appear as an utopia into reality. The crisis we go through is just a reminder and a pusher to get closer to each other and create the world that suit us the best and for everyone. We’ll make the change and we’re all in charge even through small gestures.” It is a small step for the man, giant’s jump for the humanity “.