Is Inequality What Ails Us?
The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger
by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett
–Reviewed by Adam Fleisher
Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett’s research shows that rich countries with high levels of internal wealth inequality have greater incidences of social problems than rich countries in which wealth is distributed more evenly. Their explanation? That inequality within countries causes social problems. That is, everything from obesity to lower life expectancies to higher incidences of crime and imprisonment and more is the direct result of “the scale of material differences between people within …
