The Spirit Level

“In this book we show that the quality of social relations in a society is built on material foundations. The scale of income differences has a powerful effect on how we relate to each other. Rather than blaming parents, religion, values, education, or the penal system, we will show that the scale of inequality provides a powerful policy lever on the psychological wellbeing of all of us.”

This passage clearly states the authors’ thesis. By connecting people’s wealth with their social habits, the authors encourage the reader to reflect on the interconnectedness between people’s financial status, socialization, and wellbeing, thematically incorporating The Effect of Inequality on Social Trust.

“We are the first generation to have to find new answers to the question of how to make further improvements to the real quality of human life. What should we turn to if not to economic growth? One of the most powerful clues to the answer to this question comes from the fact that we are affected very differently by the income differences within our own society from the way we are affected by the differences in average income between one rich society to another.”

In this passage, the authors refute the idea that economic growth necessarily translates to a better quality of life for the population, noting that people are sensitive to changes in status within their own country rather than how their nation compares to others in the bigger picture. This quotation primes the reader for the authors’ discussion on income differences within nations and its possible consequences.

“The view that social well-being problems are caused directly by poor material conditions such as bad housing, poor diets, lack of educational opportunities, and so on implies that richer developed societies would do better than the others. But this is a long way from the truth: some of the richest countries do worst.”

The authors contend that wealthier countries have wealthier citizens, and therefore should have better outcomes for social well-being. This passage also acknowledges the connection between financial affluence and good health. By discussing how some of the world’s wealthiest countries perform poorly on social well-being, the authors raise the question of how wealth is distributed in those countries and whether people are unwell because of poverty or because of a lower status in their society’s pecking order.

“The first pointer is that only the health and social problems which have strong social class gradients - becoming more common further down the social hierarchy - are more common in more unequal societies. This seems to be a general phenomenon: the steeper a social gradient a problem has within society, the more strongly it will be related to inequality.”

This quotation adds to the authors’ discussion of the relationship between status, wealth, and well-being. By emphasizing how some social problems are strongly related to one’s class, the authors challenge the reader to consider if reducing inequality could also reduce those social problems.

“The finding that social evaluative threats are the stressors which get to us most powerfully fits well with the evidence of rising anxiety accompanied by a narcissistic defence of an insecure self-image. As Dickerson and Kemeny say, the ‘social self’ which we try to defend ‘reflects one’s esteem and status, and is largely based on others’ perception of one’s worth.’”

In this quotation, Wilkinson and Pickett work to persuade the reader that humans are inherently wired to be sensitive to social evaluations and are afraid of being judged negatively by others. This passage establishes the writers’ theme on Social Evaluation and Acceptance, bolstering their argument that inequality erodes mental health by creating the powerful stressor of status anxiety.

“Inequality, not surprisingly, is a powerful social divider, perhaps because we all tend to use differences in living standards as markers of status differences. We tend to choose our friends from among our near equals and have little to do with those much richer or much poorer. And when we have less to do with other kinds of people, it’s harder for us to trust them.”

This discussion details how entrenched financial inequality can create subcultures based on social class, socially isolating people from others of different classes. The authors contend that this is one of the most socially divisive aspects of inequality, as it reduces relatability, community and compassion. This quotation adds to the authors’ theme The Effect of Inequality on Social Trust.

“Economist Robert Frank observes the same phenomenon and calls it ‘luxury fever.’ As inequality grows and the super rich at the top spend more and more on luxury goods, the desire for such things cascades down the income scale and the rest of us struggle to compete and keep up. Advertisers play on this, making us dissatisfied with what we have, and encouraging invidious social comparisons.”

The authors maintain that huge differences in status prompt people to aspire to join or emulate the higher classes, fueling materialism, or “luxury fever.” By discussing this phenomenon, Wilkinson and Pickett add to their theme on Social Evaluation and Acceptance, claiming that materialism is one way people try to gain admiration. They suggest that this competitive behavior is a sign of status anxiety, which contributes to people’s poor mental health in unequal societies.

“Social status and social integration are now well established as important determinants of population health and, increasingly, researchers are also recognizing that stress in early life, in the womb as well as in infancy and early childhood, has an important influence on people’s health throughout their lives.”

This passage encourages the reader to consider how egalitarian and unequal societies may differ in their degree of social integration. The authors argue that unequal societies have worse mental and physical outcomes throughout life due to higher stress, in part because of the lack of healthy social connections. This discussion is part of their analysis on The Effect of Inequality on Social Trust as they try to prove that large differences in status erode social trust and integration.

“The biology of chronic stress is a plausible pathway which helps us to understand why unequal societies are almost always unhealthy societies.”

The authors persuade the reader that ongoing stress plays a major role in declining mental and physical health—and that status anxiety and competition can contribute to such stress. This passage adds to their discussion surrounding inequality and health as they argue that unequal populations predictably suffer more physical and mental illnesses than egalitarian ones.

“It isn’t clear yet whether stress hormones themselves do the damage, or whether stressed foetuses are less well nourished, or both things happen, but these ‘thrifty phenotype’ babies have a lower birthweight and a lower metabolic rate. In other words, they are adapted for an environment where food is scarce - they are small and need less food.”

This theory highlights how stress can impact one’s life before it has even begun. By incorporating the thrifty phenotype theory, the authors add weight to their discussion of the relationship between health and inequality by connecting the stress of low status to poor health outcomes and intergenerational poverty and illness.

“It’s not a great leap then to think how life in a more hierarchical, mistrustful society might affect intimate, domestic relationships and family life. Domestic conflict and violence, parental mental illness, poverty of time and resources will all combine to affect child development.”

The authors claim that inequality erodes social trust and increases stress, which in turn has destructive effects on families and home life. Without being able to prove a causal link between inequality and familial problems, the authors try to persuade the reader that hierarchy and distrust create worse conditions for family life.

“Reckless, even violent behaviour comes from young men at the bottom of society, deprived of all the markers of status, who must struggle to maintain face and what little status they have, often reacting explosively when it is threatened…The simple answer is that increased inequality ups the stakes in the competition for status: status matters even more.”

The authors claim that criminal violence does not generally stem from material need but from status anxiety. This theory adds to Wilkinson and Pickett’s theme on Social Evaluation and Acceptance, inviting the reader to consider how being in the lowest income bracket may fuel discontent and intensify the need to claim a more powerful status for oneself.

“Not only do the higher rates of imprisonment in more unequal societies seem to reflect more punitive sentencing rather than crime rates, but both the harshness of the prison systems and use of capital punishment point in the same direction.”

The authors observe the correlation between high imprisonment and income inequality in rich countries. While they cannot prove that inequality produces higher imprisonment, or the other way around, this quotation encourages the reader to consider harsh and punitive prison systems to be problematic and indicative of a more hierarchical society.

“Researchers on both sides of the Atlantic are clear that increased income inequality is responsible for increasing the segregation of rich and poor. The concentration of poor areas leads to all kinds of stress, deprivation, and difficulty—from increased commuting times for those who have to leave deprived communities to find work elsewhere, to increased risk of traffic accidents, worse schools, poor levels of service, exposure to gang violence, pollution, and so on.”

In this passage, the authors develop their theme on The Effect of Inequality on Social Trust by showing how income inequality is, quite literally, socially divisive, since people of different income levels live in different neighborhoods. The authors suggest that this “segregation” allows social distrust to fester, decreasing people’s sense of community and trust in other people.

“Bigger income differences seem to solidify the social structure and decrease the chances of upward mobility. Where there are greater inequalities of outcome, equal opportunity is a significantly more distant prospect.”

Wilkinson and Pickett maintain that unequal societies are more likely to produce lower classes that are entrenched in poverty because the social classes are more “solidified.”

“We can now see that the studies that looked paradoxical were telling us something important about the effects of greater equality. By suggesting that more and less equal societies contained relative health differentials within them, they were telling us that everyone receives roughly proportional benefits from greater equality.”

This passage persuades the reader that more egalitarian societies benefit people of all incomes, not just the poorest. This is a crucial part of the authors’ argument, as their ideal is to not only reduce poverty but to increase everyone’s wellbeing by reducing social anxiety and competition.

“This leads us to another important point: greater equality can be gained either by using taxes and benefits to redistribute very unequal incomes or by greater equality in gross incomes before taxes and benefits, which leaves less need for redistribution. So big taxes may not always be necessary to gain the advantages of a more equal society.”

In this passage, the authors discuss different routes to achieving more income equality. By clarifying that higher taxation is not always necessary, Wilkinson and Pickett try to be more politically neutral about how equality could be achieved.

“But the prevalence of ill-health and social problems in those societies is not simply a patternless reflection of so many unique histories. It is instead patterned according to the amount of inequality which has resulted from those unique histories. What seems to matter therefore is not how societies got to where they are now, but where—in terms of their level of inequality—it is that they have now got to.”

The authors acknowledge that the countries they compare have very different histories. However, they believe that their current levels of inequality are more important factors in informing the population’s quality of life than their historical context. This statement guides the reader to consider pragmatic responses to current inequality rather than engage in historical analysis of how countries became unequal.

“Social status stratification, like ranking systems or pecking orders among animals, are fundamentally orderings based on power and coercion, on privileged access to resources, regardless of others’ needs. In its most naked and animal form, might is right and the weakest eat last. Friendship is almost exactly the opposite kind of relationship.”

The authors sharply contrast hierarchy and friendship, portraying them as opposite social behaviors. This discussion bolsters their theme on Social Evaluation and Acceptance, as they claim that egalitarian societies more easily foster friendships and healthy social behavior.

“You can see signs of rivalry within species all around us—you only have to think of birds at a garden feeder, or dogs fighting, or think of the banned sport of cock fighting: in each case the conflicts are within the species. Human beings have to deal with the same problem.”

The authors emphasize all animals’ penchant for competition as they claim that humans are wired for competition but suffer if they are not the winners. This argument forces the reader to reflect on how human nature can be managed and directed by policy, for better or worse.

“A very important source of the close social integration in an egalitarian community is the sense of self-realization we can get when we successfully meet others’ needs. This is often seen as a mysterious quality, almost as if it were above explanation. It comes of course from our need to feel valued by others.”

Wilkinson and Pickett add to their theme The Effect of Inequality on Social Trust by claiming that people in egalitarian societies are more likely to help others and contribute to community causes. This, in turn, has benefits for their own happiness and mental health.

“The problem is that second-class goods make us look like second-class people. By comparison with the rich and famous, the rest of us appear second-rate and inferior, and the bigger the differences, the more noticeable and important they become. As inequality increases status competition, we have to struggle harder to keep up.”

In this quotation, the authors blame inequality for “status competition,” suggesting that people would feel less anxious and inferior in a more egalitarian community. This claim prompts the reader to consider how material conditions influence human behavior and if the government should play a role in mitigating these responses.

“Policies to reduce carbon emissions depend on a wider sense of social responsibility, of co-operation and public spiritedness. Here again the evidence suggests that more equal societies do better.”

Wilkinson and Pickett build on their discussion of social trust to claim that egalitarian countries are more community-minded and therefore better equipped to respond to crises such as climate change. The authors cannot provide solid evidence that equality fosters social responsibility and problem-solving, but they present an intriguing link for the reader to consider.