The Spirit Level: Why Equality is Better for Everyone

by Richard G. Wilkinson

In poorer countries, economic development continues to be very important for human wellbeing. Increases in their material living standards result in substantial improvements both in objective measures of wellbeing like life expectancy, and in subjective ones like happiness. But as nations join the ranks of the affluent developed countries, further rises in income count for less and less.

diseases of affluence – the degenerative cardiovascular diseases and cancers.

Individual psychology and societal inequality relate to each other like lock and key.

Social status carries the strongest messages of superiority and inferiority, and social mobility is widely seen as a process by which people are sorted by ability.

Tis very certain that each man carries in his eye the exact indication of his rank in the immense scale of men, and we are always learning to read

is not average levels of economic wellbeing that create trust, but economic equality.

The big idea is that what matters in determining mortality and health in a society is less the overall wealth of that society and more how evenly wealth is distributed. The more equally wealth is distributed the better the health of that society.

If inequality leads to unrealistic hopes it must also lead to disappointment.