lpetrich
22 Apr 2010, 09:04 PM
Nicolas Baumard has blogged on Better live in Sweden than in the US: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better (http://www.cognitionandculture.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=602:better-live-in-sweden-or-anywhere-else-than-in-the-us-why-more-equal-societies-almost-always-do-b&catid=37:nicolas&Itemid=34), discussing the book The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always do Better (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Spirit-Level-Societies-Almost-Always/dp/1846140390) by epidemiologists Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett. Also reviewed in Nature magazine (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v458/n7242/full/4581109a.html) and The Guardian (http://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/docs/inequality.pdf) and by Mike the Mad Biologist (http://scienceblogs.com/mikethemadbiologist/2010/03/income_inequality_and_the_resi.php).
A lot of the discussion seems to assume great economic inequality -> social dysfunction, when the causality could be reversed, social dysfunction -> great economic inequality, or they could have some separate cause. However, the correlations looks real, at least to me.
The differences revealed, even between rich market democracies, are striking. Almost every modern social and environmental problem - ill-health, lack of community life, violence, drugs, obesity, mental illness, long working hours, big prison populations - is more likely to occur in a less equal society.
However, there was little or no correlation between absolute income and these indices of dysfunction.
What holds true of nations also holds true of US states; the less egalitarian ones tend to have greater amounts of social dysfunction, while absolute income does not make much difference.
Furthermore, increase in national income per person above $10,000/year does not make much difference in life expectancy, suggesting that beyond a certain point, material improvement does not help very much.
Wilkinson and Pickett suggest these reasons:
Humans belong to a social species (as many primates). As such, we have a drive for being at the top of the social ladder and we always crave for status. This has several consequences:
People's self-esteem is indexed on others' performance and evaluation. The more unequal the society, the more people feel threatened.
The release of cortisol (a stress hormone) raises blood pressure and blood sugar levels, from which myriad health and social problems unfold.
Unequal societies decrease almost everyone's self-esteem and has consequences over children's aspirations (they have lower aspirations in more unequal societies) and their motivation when they realize that some of their peers are better equipped than themselves for educational challenges.
People want to be as good as others. The bigger the differences, the stronger the need to meet others' standards.
People may use violent strategy to defend their status. The more we feel devaluated by those above us and the fewer status resources we have to fall back on, the greater will be the desire to regain some sense of self-worth by asserting superiority over more vulnerable groups.
Men, compared to women, have strong incentives to achieve and maintain as high a social status as they can, because their success in sexual competition depend on status.
Humans are a highly cooperative species (contrary to most primates) Social support is central for humans and in the same way that competition is stressful, lack of support is painful.
Humans face a trade-off between quantity and quality strategy (as all living beings). More egalitarianism and cooperation favors quality over quantity.
This suggests that great economic inequality is often a symptom rather than a cause, and that we need to address broader social issues. Inegalitarians may respond with some caricature of absolute equality. I think that that's going too far in the opposite direction. What is necessary is Aristotle's Golden Mean between too much equality and too little.
NB concludes by noting that more egalitarian baseball teams tend to do better than less egalitarian ones. That is likely because the more egalitarian ones are better at cooperating than the less egalitarian ones.
NB is careful to note that egalitarianism can be achieved by different means - Sweden has a big welfare state, while Japan has little of that. NB does not mention that Japan is very anti-immigrant, something which makes employees less abundant relative to employers than elsewhere.
Mike the Mad Biologist states that W and P ought to have looked at the outliers to see what is going on with them - what makes them so different.
I've checked several of these stats with GapMinder (http://www.gapminder.org/), a huge collection of statistics, and they hold up.
I checked on some additional statistics, like life expectancy and national income per person vs. the Gini Index, a measure of economic inequality. Relative economic egalitarianism has not kept several western European countries from being affluent or having long-lived citizens, and great economic inegalitarianism has not helped many South Americans live long or become anywhere close to affluent.
A lot of the discussion seems to assume great economic inequality -> social dysfunction, when the causality could be reversed, social dysfunction -> great economic inequality, or they could have some separate cause. However, the correlations looks real, at least to me.
The differences revealed, even between rich market democracies, are striking. Almost every modern social and environmental problem - ill-health, lack of community life, violence, drugs, obesity, mental illness, long working hours, big prison populations - is more likely to occur in a less equal society.
However, there was little or no correlation between absolute income and these indices of dysfunction.
What holds true of nations also holds true of US states; the less egalitarian ones tend to have greater amounts of social dysfunction, while absolute income does not make much difference.
Furthermore, increase in national income per person above $10,000/year does not make much difference in life expectancy, suggesting that beyond a certain point, material improvement does not help very much.
Wilkinson and Pickett suggest these reasons:
Humans belong to a social species (as many primates). As such, we have a drive for being at the top of the social ladder and we always crave for status. This has several consequences:
People's self-esteem is indexed on others' performance and evaluation. The more unequal the society, the more people feel threatened.
The release of cortisol (a stress hormone) raises blood pressure and blood sugar levels, from which myriad health and social problems unfold.
Unequal societies decrease almost everyone's self-esteem and has consequences over children's aspirations (they have lower aspirations in more unequal societies) and their motivation when they realize that some of their peers are better equipped than themselves for educational challenges.
People want to be as good as others. The bigger the differences, the stronger the need to meet others' standards.
People may use violent strategy to defend their status. The more we feel devaluated by those above us and the fewer status resources we have to fall back on, the greater will be the desire to regain some sense of self-worth by asserting superiority over more vulnerable groups.
Men, compared to women, have strong incentives to achieve and maintain as high a social status as they can, because their success in sexual competition depend on status.
Humans are a highly cooperative species (contrary to most primates) Social support is central for humans and in the same way that competition is stressful, lack of support is painful.
Humans face a trade-off between quantity and quality strategy (as all living beings). More egalitarianism and cooperation favors quality over quantity.
This suggests that great economic inequality is often a symptom rather than a cause, and that we need to address broader social issues. Inegalitarians may respond with some caricature of absolute equality. I think that that's going too far in the opposite direction. What is necessary is Aristotle's Golden Mean between too much equality and too little.
NB concludes by noting that more egalitarian baseball teams tend to do better than less egalitarian ones. That is likely because the more egalitarian ones are better at cooperating than the less egalitarian ones.
NB is careful to note that egalitarianism can be achieved by different means - Sweden has a big welfare state, while Japan has little of that. NB does not mention that Japan is very anti-immigrant, something which makes employees less abundant relative to employers than elsewhere.
Mike the Mad Biologist states that W and P ought to have looked at the outliers to see what is going on with them - what makes them so different.
I've checked several of these stats with GapMinder (http://www.gapminder.org/), a huge collection of statistics, and they hold up.
I checked on some additional statistics, like life expectancy and national income per person vs. the Gini Index, a measure of economic inequality. Relative economic egalitarianism has not kept several western European countries from being affluent or having long-lived citizens, and great economic inegalitarianism has not helped many South Americans live long or become anywhere close to affluent.