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.
She summarizes these findings in this quick nine-minute talk at a Green Party conference:
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, why unequal societies are more violent, 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 23
Anon — February 10, 2012
LessWrong.com has a blog post by Eliezer Yudkowsky about "buying utilons and warm fuzzies separately":
http://lesswrong.com/lw/6z/purchase_fuzzies_and_utilons_separately/
The gist of this is that, if you truly wish to be altruistic, you need to crunch cold, hard numbers and figure out what the best way is to help the most people, regardless of how it makes you feel (utilons). Then, in a separate budget, allow for 'altruistic' measures that satisfy your personal sense of responsibility (fuzzies). Don't confuse things that are truly useful for other people (utilons) with things that only make yourself feel good about being such a charitable soul (fuzzies).
Mordicai — February 10, 2012
Yep! I'm perfectly happy being a giant misanthrope & a giant bleeding heart. Social justice makes cold hard sense. Randroids are just missing out on, you know basic displacement theory. Like looking at the Prisoner's Dilemma & not figuring out that game play might be complicated in the Iterative Game.
Monica Zoe Guzman — February 10, 2012
Bravo!
pduggie — February 10, 2012
But I want to do things for the sake of altruism, not because it's in my self-interest: its more moral. So what do I do? I don't want to be a selfish do-gooder.
LynneShapiro2 — February 10, 2012
Also there is the idea that came to me that certain factors-such as alcoholism and other diseases like obesity and mental illness,make people unable to function to work and/or manage their funds wisely and hence make them poor. Which comes first the chicken or the egg.
Phen — February 10, 2012
"negative outcomes, including higher rates of mental illness, drug use, obesity, infant death, imprisonment, and interpersonal trust"
?
Gilbert Pinfold — February 10, 2012
A conservative perspective: if the threat of violence could be removed, the other problems would be manageable. For some time now, the equality racket has functioned like a shakedown always underwritten by subtle and not-so-subtle threats of violence.
Fortibus — February 10, 2012
I'm confused.. how was causation determined in these studies? As far as I can tell, she only presents theories as to why these variables are correlated.
tina — February 11, 2012
Can you please fix the "income inequality contributes to a whole host of negative outcomes" link?
Anonymous — February 11, 2012
Is SocioImages ever going to do transcripts? Basic accessibility issue...
Kate Pickett talks equality | The Prime Directive — November 3, 2012
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