Written By: - Date published: 11:18 am, April 13th, 2016 - 5 comments
Based on the breakthrough book The Spirit Level, just released film The Divide puts a human face on low wage hell. “Why aren’t we earning enough to live?”
Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, March 22nd, 2015 - 173 comments
The Liberal National Party Coalition in Australia want to overturn a requirement for corporations with a turnover of $100 million to disclose tax information on the grounds that kidnapping will occur even though the rich’s ostentatiousness is plain to see without the information being published. And in America it has been estimated that Wall Street’s bonus pool is twice the amount paid to full time American employees living on the minimum wage.
Written By: - Date published: 7:50 am, December 12th, 2014 - 181 comments
Message to today’s anonymous Herald editorialist – competition doesn’t close the inequality gap, it widens it. In other news, black is black not white, and water is wet. How can you write such drivel?
Written By: - Date published: 2:10 pm, May 18th, 2014 - 131 comments
The Sir Douglas Robb Lectures for 2014 start tomorrow evening in Auckland. These three free lectures are being given by the authors of “The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better”, a book much hated by those amongst us who would prefer that societies either didn’t exist or were more unequal and tilted in their favour. Based on many of the trolls here on this topic, it’d appear that most Act supporters and many National supporters appear fall into this category.
Written By: - Date published: 9:39 am, January 26th, 2014 - 207 comments
There has been an abundance of research showing that communities and societies function better when their resources are shared around. But the need to persuade ordinary people that this is so is the most important thing to achieve. Because without popular support attempts to change the current system are bound to fail.
Written By: - Date published: 7:19 pm, January 25th, 2014 - 40 comments
John Key seems to be trying to fudge the evidence of the damaging inequalities in NZ. I recap Bunji’s 2010 series of posts on The Spirit Level showing the benefits of a more equal society. Will this be addressed by Cunliffe and Turei this long weekend?
Written By: - Date published: 7:34 am, October 27th, 2013 - 61 comments
US mathematician Peter Turchin believes that mathematics can predict events such as the recent constitutional crisis in America and has constructed a model based on social and economic data that he believes predicts periods of instability and disaster for nations. This work shows the negative side of inequality and neatly compliments the work of Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett in the Spirit Level that showed the benefits of increased equality.
Written By: - Date published: 12:55 pm, August 23rd, 2012 - 50 comments
The exodus to Australia is at record levels. Falling wages have seen social inequality rise to record levels. Good job National.
Written By: - Date published: 10:12 am, May 18th, 2012 - 42 comments
Austerity is reducing the opportunities for social mobility, for reducing income inequality, for a fair society. The increased class sizes, the removal of Adult and Community Education, the removal of Training Allowances, and many more things National are doing in the name of “austerity” are undermining our society.
Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, December 31st, 2011 - 140 comments
Scott at ImperatorFish has a look at the moral blame game that some use when violence is used against children. If people want to talk about a lack of values, they could start with the set of neoliberal values during the reforms of the 1980s and 1990s. We are still paying the price for the massive trauma caused to communities in the name of greed.
Written By: - Date published: 12:08 pm, July 23rd, 2011 - 3 comments
We’ve written about The Spirit Level on several occasions. Here are the authors discussing the New Zealand situation.
Written By: - Date published: 7:50 am, May 1st, 2011 - 35 comments
How do we improve a society’s happiness most effectively? By lifting the poor out of poverty. By increasing wealth where we get more happiness bang for our income buck, and reducing the disparity between rich and poor. So why are we currently moving in the opposite direction?
Written By: - Date published: 7:21 am, February 14th, 2011 - 78 comments
Economic inequality is damaging to the fabric of society. It’s a simple and compelling message, and it seems to have the political “Right” in a complete panic. In fact if Deborah Coddington’s latest piece is anything to go by, the Right are terrified to the point of derangement.
Written By: - Date published: 6:05 am, November 21st, 2010 - 11 comments
The Spirit Level is the book that the loony right of politics loves to hate. Today, Sunday morning political analysis show Q+A features Emeritus Professor Richard Wilkinson, co-author of The Spirit Level (9am on One). Should be an interesting programme…
Written By: - Date published: 10:00 am, October 10th, 2010 - 11 comments
The last in a series of 6 summarising the argument of The Spirit Level. This post looks at how we might achieve a more equitable future.
Written By: - Date published: 12:58 pm, October 1st, 2010 - 16 comments
The fifth of 6 in a series summarising the argument of The Spirit Level. This post looks at how a more equal society may also be a more sustainable one.
Written By: - Date published: 12:22 pm, September 25th, 2010 - 40 comments
The fourth of 6 in a series summarising the argument of The Spirit Level. This post examines how inequality affects education, social mobility and teenage pregnancies.
Written By: - Date published: 12:30 pm, September 24th, 2010 - 36 comments
The third of 6 in a series summarising the argument of The Spirit Level. This post examines how inequality affects crime and our attitudes to others.
Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, September 18th, 2010 - 63 comments
The second of 6 in a series summarising the argument of The Spirit Level. This post examines how inequality affects mental and physical health.
Written By: - Date published: 12:00 pm, September 17th, 2010 - 43 comments
We bang on about The Spirit Level from time to time, and I promised a series summarising the book… well here it is. It’ll be six parts.
Written By: - Date published: 7:20 am, September 13th, 2010 - 194 comments
“The Spirit Level” is a book with a simple message: An unequal society is a sick society. It’s a message that has the right wing running scared, and trying to dodge the issue by pretending that they believe in “equality of opportunity”. But across society there’s no such thing…
Written By: - Date published: 7:31 am, August 8th, 2010 - 82 comments
For the last several decades the over-riding mantra across western governments has been that what is important above all else is economic growth. Now is the time to question whether it should still be our main aim and guiding light.
Written By: - Date published: 7:16 am, May 25th, 2010 - 35 comments
Pointing out that a “rich get richer” budget is going to increase inequality in NZ seems to be making the Nats uncomfortable. Bill English tries to simply deny the facts. DPF tries to divert attention to “social mobility”. Lame efforts in both cases. The truth is that inequality isn’t on the Nats radar. They simply don’t care.
Written By: - Date published: 11:04 am, May 19th, 2010 - 71 comments
Inequality is terribly damaging to society. National want to increase inequality by transferring wealth from the poor to the rich. They argue that this provides “incentives” for the vast majority of the rest of us to “get ahead”. But this aspirational argument is both incoherent and absurd.
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