Unequal Societies

This is the 500th blog I’ve written on Marks in the Margin during the past three years. From time to time, I have taken a break and I’m going do so once gain. I hope to resume with a retooled version of the blog. After the last break, I wrote about Occupy Wall Street movement that galvanized me into action. I conclude on a similar theme as I write about the multiple effects of the ever-growing, ever-pernicious effects of economic inequality in this country and elsewhere.

In addition to wide financial disparities, what are the other, equally harmful effects that economic inequality gives rise to? This is the question posed by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett in their wide ranging analysis reported in The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better.

I first heard about the book in a talk Wilkinson gave in at a TED presentation and later in Andrew Hacker’s review last month. Although the assumptions built in to The Spirit Level's statistical analysis are complex, the results are straightforward. Wilkinson and Picket rank the quality of life in twenty-three countries, primarily European, but also the US, Israel and Singapore.

By quality of life they mean several indices including education, incarceration, mental and physical health, etc. These measures are then “related” to how income is distributed in each country. Consider some representative findings:

• People in more equal societies live longer and their self-rated health is better.

• People in more equal societies are far less likely to experience mental illness.

• Children do better at school in more equal societies. Measures of child well-being are also better in more equal societies.

• Unequal societies have a higher proportion of incarcerated individuals.

• Measures of obesity, drug abuse, and violence are higher in more unequal societies.

Wilkinson and Picket write, “As income gaps grow, it’s not only the poor who suffer. Unequal societies not only bear “diseases of poverty,” but also “diseases of affluence.” The latter include cancer and cardiovascular disease as well as the afflictions of well-off people who are “anxiety-ridden,” “prone to depression,” and “seek comfort in overeating, obsessive shopping and spending.”

Here is an example of the type of data reported in the book. The horizontal axis of the graph shows the level of economic inequality (The US, UK, and Portugal are the highest; Japan, Sweden, Norway and Finland the lowest). On the vertical axis is a composite measure of social problems. Wilkinson and Pickett conclude there are significantly fewer social problems in more economically equal societies. A similar relationship holds for most of the other measures they report.

However, it is important to remember that the results reported in The Spirit Level do not demonstrate a casual relationship between income distribution and any particular outcome measure. Instead, they describe societal averages in which even in unequal societies, there are individuals who are in good health, do well in school, and have few social problems. We can say that on the average individuals in unequal societies do worse on these measures and on the whole people in more equal societies do better.

Some critics have questioned Wilkinson and Pickett’s statistical model and, at present, there have been few attempts to replicate their findings. However, in one, the authors report that, “the most straightforward measure of health simply has no robust correlation to income equality when comparing industrialized countries using standard OECD [Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development] and UN statistics.”

In spite of these cautionary notes, The Spirit Level does put forward a powerful claim about the wide-ranging, seemingly interrelated consequences of economic inequality, a claim that is especially pertinent now as we enter into yet another political campaign and try to assess the future impact of unexpectedly popular Occupy Wall Street movement.

Occupy Wall Street

The Wall Street protests continue and are spreading. It is both gratifying and surprising. Here are some recent developments.

Protests and action meetings are occurring throughout the country in such cities as Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, etc. For a complete list of both national and international support sites see the Occupy Together website.

There is a very active community forum on the protest movements on Facebook.

The media is paying increasing attention. The Times has published a number of articles about the Wall Street Occupiers and has shown video interviews with some of the participants on its website. An older woman said she had been there every day but one, and wanted to help “these kids do what my generation never did.”

Professor Cornell West has spoken to the group, as has Michael Moore. Noam Chomsky sent a strong message of support to the activists.

A food station has been established in the park where the protestors have gathered. Information stations, recycling and media centers, as well as a power generator have been set up. There is even a library at one end of the park with boxes of donated books. The Times reports there are also therapists on location.

The group is now publishing a, free weekly newspaper, The Occupied Wall Street Journal.

Up until recently it has relatively peaceful protest. However, last weekend there was one ugly incident in which an officer pepper sprayed a number of female protesters. The episode is currently under investigation by the police department and Manhattan district attorney.

And during the past weekend 700 demonstrators were arrested as they tried to cross the Brooklyn Bridge on the roadway, blocking traffic, while those who used the walkway were not.

The New York Police Department continues to deploy hundreds of officers on the edge of the park. To date, there is no sign they will attempt to put an end to the protest.

The movement seems to be leaderless, without structure, an end-point and or concrete goal, other than voicing discontent at the varieties of economic injustices in this country.

The development of similar protests throughout the major metropolitan centers of this country is truly remarkable. No doubt it reflects a widespread and perhaps growing support of the movement’s protest against the nation’s economic inequalities.

Day Twelve

I’m back. There’s too much going on now, too much that I’d like to write about.

Hereafter, I’ll write more briefly and broaden the topics a bit.

I’ve been galvanized by Occupy Wall Street. At last we have someone speaking out on economic inequality in this country!

For years we’ve been reading about this issue, the fact that 1% of the population receives 25% of the nation’s income and holds 42% of the nation’s wealth, that these gaps are growing so that now roughly 46,200,000 people in this country live in “poverty,” defined as an annual income of $22,113 for a family of four.

Does it make any sense for one person to earn over $400,000,000 a year in salary or $300,000,000 or slightly less?

Is there any fairness in this? Is it the least bit reasonable? Does whatever rationale is invoked, let alone performance displayed, justify executive compensation of this magnitude, an annual payout, mind you. And this is only their salary, not the taxes they end up paying or the generous options and bonuses that often go with it. What kind of economic justice is this anyway?

Meanwhile, banks repossessed almost 1,000,000 homes last year and the number may be even more this year.

I quote from the website of Occupy Wall Street Now:

Our Mission
On the 17th of September, we want to see 20,000 people to flood into lower Manhattan, set up beds, kitchens, peaceful barricades and occupy Wall Street for a few months.
Like our brothers and sisters in Egypt, Greece, Spain, and Iceland, we plan to use the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic of mass occupation to restore democracy in America. We also encourage the use of nonviolence to achieve our ends and maximize the safety of all participants.

Who is Occupy Wall Street?
Occupy Wall Street is leaderless resistance movement with people of many colors, genders and political persuasions. The one thing we all have in common is that We Are The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%.
The original call for this occupation was published by Adbusters in July; since then, many individuals across the country have stepped up to organize this event, such as the people of the NYC General Assembly and US Day of Rage. There'll also be similar occupations in the near future such as October2011 in Freedom Plaza, Washington D.C.


Those who believe that peaceful protests of this nature serve no purpose and accomplish even less might benefit from a closer look at history, especially recent history where far more people put far more at risk in acting upon their beliefs.