In an earlier post we reviewed research by epidemiologists Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett showing that income inequality contributes to a whole host of negative outcomes, including higher rates of mental illness, drug use, obesity, infant death, imprisonment, and interpersonal trust.
In the 3 1/2-minute video below, Kate Pickett argues that social inequality causes violence by creating status inequalities that those on the bottom respond to with violence.
Pickett and Wilkinson’s data is striking, but I’m not sure I buy that low status combined with status-sensitivity instigates violence. Sociologists have made this argument; but others have questioned these conclusions.
Villanova University’s Lance Hannon, for example, tested this “subculture of violence” thesis as applied to poor African Americans. Using police department homicide data, he found no evidence that Black people were more likely than White people to react to an insult with violence. This is swapping race for class, of course (and Hannon doesn’t control for class because the data was limited), but it does suggest that we should think carefully about the kind of argument Pickett is making.
See Dr. Pickett making similar arguments as to why raising the average national income in developed countries doesn’t make people happier or enable them to live longer and how status inequality increases stress. And see more about income inequality and national well-being at Equality Trust.
Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
Comments 1
Missa Ndrea — March 22, 2012
hmmm, I don't think swapping race for class works as a "control" or however you're attempting to use it -- in other words, only looking at how poor Blacks respond to injustice, ignores that much of the systematic injustice which they experience is inflicted on them by privileged whites. They're not going to respond in the same way as poor whites would respond to privileged whites, because people who know they get punished A LOT MORE in response to lessor offenses, wouldn't be as likely to respond to white bullies with violence.
But yet her explanation makes sense to me, (if you make allowances for racism as described above). In a culture which just screams "consume" and everyone is judged according to how much they can afford to consume, those on the bottom (who realize their low position is due in large part to gross unfairness) would be the most frustrated. And hey, the culture in which they live is grossly unfair, so they don't expect anybody on the upper tiers to care. So, more frustration.
Poor whites would take their frustration out on each other, AND Black people. But Black folks wouldn't take their frustration out on white folks as much, because they know (or fear) the punishment would be way out of purportion. So they'd take their frustration out on each other, or especially Black men venting on Black women.