The charts of “The Spirit Level” show some evidences which were mostly not unexpected, at least for me, except some, such as Israel having the least educational scores. They show the benefits of a smaller gap between rich and poor people, of course when the gap is big, so we have very poor people and very rich ones, there are a lot of troubles in every case. I think that this is related directly to the education of the people, so poor people do not have the possibilities to get a good education and this leads to many problems such that high homicides’ rate, low teenage birthrate, high child conflict rate, high health and social problems etc.
On the other hand we have the richest people where with these results I can state my idea that money spoils, indulges people. It makes people abuse with everything around, starting with eating till the limits of politeness/rudeness. They attend the most expensive private universities where you can easily buy the diplomas; they can afford the usage of drugs, which implies the health and social problems increase. And of course they don’t care about recycling and innovation because they think that money buys everything… Now in Albania, I believe that this gap is not very large and I hope and wish that the medium level class will be dominant for a better life for everyone …
Erisa,
YanıtlaSilI think your comment is attractive and convincing. You have given a few words the reality of what happens in countries which do not have equality in economy and social services. The social problems stated in the comment are quite evident.
The example of Albania is well found and illustrated because not only supports the idea of the authors but serves as a tangible example of the daily life.
Money spoils,indulges not all the people,but some those can't balance the things in their lives. In fact, this is very dangerous for a society.At this point, the importance of education,way of thinking,culture,ethic values is understandable in a better way.In societies, which are at high levels from those aspects, distribution of income is done more equally.
YanıtlaSilI want to add something related with those subjects.There are some commmonly used words such as :" money is not so important,but happiness", "richness doesn't have any meaning without ...." and some other similar ones which compare having lots of money with having some other most important things like health, happiness,etc.Of course,those words are right and meaningful,but they enable some people to think that more money always brings troubles together with it which in fact isn't correct for normal,rationale people,but those who have tendency to go to extremes due to lack of some values or their natures.
Logical thinking, I believe that having some persons holding enormous pots of wealth may not be the best way to encourage people to value society, family, friends or a sense of community, but rather would encourage people to watch over their shoulders and try to keep up with the values of high consumerism. Not buying into social hierarchies or consumerism would not bring about the collapse of the world, but rather would increase one's happiness in it.
YanıtlaSilThe Spirit Level is well written, and according to me it is a must read for absolutely anyone who cares about anything. This is not a "left" or "right" book , this is a book that is questioning our value structure, our way of life, how long is this way of life sustainable and successfully examines the consequences of inequality.
YanıtlaSil