The Spirit Level shows, the health of our democracies, our societies and their people, truly dependent on greater equality. The authors point out that the life-diminishing results of valuing growth above equality in rich societies can be seen all around us. Inequality causes shorter, unhealthier and unhappier lives; it increases the rate of teenage pregnancy, violence, obesity, imprisonment and addiction. It destroys relationships between individuals born in the same society but into different classes.
They use the information to create a series of scatter-graphs whose patterns look nearly identical, yet which document the prevalence of a vast range of social ills. On almost every index of quality of life, or wellness, or deprivation, there is a gradient showing a strong correlation between a country's level of economic inequality and its social outcomes. They reveal that it is not just the poor, but whole societies, from top to bottom, that are adversely affected by inequality. It's impossible to overstate the implications of their thesis: that the societies of Britain and the US
Concluding, the book does end on an optimistic note, with a transformative, rather than revolutionary, program for making sick societies healthier. Anyone who believes that society is the result of what we do, rather than who we are, should read these books. They should start with The Spirit Level because of its inarguable battery of evidence, and because its conclusion is simple: we do better when we're equal.
We are every day witness of the consequences of living in an unequal society. But people usually tend to take it as default. But when we read a book or we discuss about it we become more aware and conscious about the situation. It makes us think, change our point of view and evaluate our position.
YanıtlaSil