Tag The Equality Trust

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Shattering the myth of egalitarianism in Australia (and NZ)

Apr 26, ’09 12:56 PM

Boris Frankel in Melbourne’s The Age:

Here is some good news. Just as the Great Depres­sion inspired sig­ni­fic­ant social reforms, so the cur­rent “great world reces­sion” is pro­du­cing a spate of over­due reform pro­pos­als. Some of these pro­pos­als have emerged in Bri­tain, one of the most unequal soci­et­ies in the developed world. While Aus­tralia ranks as the fourth most unequal developed soci­ety after the US, Por­tugal and Bri­tain, there is wide­spread delu­sion among Aus­trali­ans that we are an egal­it­arian soci­ety. By con­trast, 80 per cent of people in Brit­ish sur­veys believe that class divi­sion — or birth not worth — determ­ines a child’s life chances.

I think there’s prob­ably wide­spread delu­sion among New Zeal­anders too when it comes to see­ing their soci­ety as egal­it­arian. It used to be for sure, but since the Labour and National party usered in free-market fun­da­ment­al­ism in the 80s New Zea­l­and, too, has become one of the most unequal developed soci­et­ies in the world. One more reason not to vote for Labour or National.

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Bill to make companies publish difference between their best and worst paid

Apr 24, ’09 8:34 PM

This Bill was to have its second read­ing in the UK’s House of Lords today. The Bill would make pubic com­pan­ies pub­lish the dif­fer­ence between top dir­ect­ors’ pay and the aver­age wages earned by the low­est paid 10% of their workers.

While a small step it’s laud­able when you con­sider the amount of dam­age income inequal­ity does to soci­ety and its people. It will be use­ful to know which com­pan­ies are doing the most dam­age and which aren’t. And, while it’s a small step, it’s an inter­est­ing Bill in that it makes any­one who opposes it look like a right prat, espe­cially in this eco­nomic climate.

Dick Tav­erne and Miles Tem­pleton dis­cussed the Bill on BBC Radio’s Today pro­gramme this morn­ing. You can listen to it here. Good to hear a House of Lords mem­ber pro­mot­ing income equality.

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Why more equal societies always do better

Mar 15, ’09 9:00 PM

It’s been a long time com­ing but two people, Richard Wilkin­son and Kate Pick­ett, have finally put the num­bers together and con­clus­ively shown that mod­ern social prob­lems are sub­stan­tially worse in those soci­et­ies with wider gaps between rich and poor.

Any curs­ory look at the world tells you this but these are the first people to show it sci­en­tific­ally. This, I would sug­gest, is going to be huge. The implic­a­tions are profound.

Will Hut­ton, writ­ing for The Guard­ian:

Income inequal­ity, they show bey­ond any doubt, is not just bad for those at the bot­tom but for every­one. More unequal soci­et­ies are socially dys­func­tional across the board. There is more teen­age preg­nancy, men­tal ill­ness, higher prison pop­u­la­tions, more murders, higher obesity and less numer­acy and lit­er­acy in more unequal soci­et­ies. Even the rich report more men­tal ill health and have lower life expect­an­cies than their peers in less unequal societies.

They have pro­duced a book on their find­ings called The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Soci­et­ies Almost Always Do Bet­ter. And they’ve also cre­ated web­site, equalitytrust.org, to make the evid­ence they set out bet­ter known.

As John Carey points out in his review of their book in the Times: “It might be said that The Spirit Level merely for­mu­lates what every­one has always felt.”

Now maybe we can get on with chan­ging a few things around here.

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