Tag Archives: richard wilkinson

How does The Spirit Level withstand a critic?

By Mark Pack | Published 1st December 2010 - 8:55 am

The success of Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett’s The Spirit Level (reviewed here in August) in setting the terms for much political discussion unsurprisingly triggered a burst of publications taking a sceptical look at their case. Prime amongst these is Policy Exchange’s publication Beware False Prophets, by Peter Saunders, whose title gives you a fair clue as to its line.

As the book says on its back cover:

In The Spirit Level, Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett claimed that egalitarian societies benefit rich and poor alike. Crime rates are lower, infant mortality is reduced, obesity is less prevalent, education

…

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Book review: The Spirit Level – Why equality is better for everyone by Richard Wilkinson & Kate Pickett

By Mark Pack | Published 9th August 2010 - 11:20 am

Although first published under a Labour government in 2009, this book is still highly relevant now we have a Conservative / Liberal Democrat coalition. In fact, it is even more relevant because the current political and economic circumstances are forcing Liberal Democrats to think carefully about how much we are worried about inequality of outcome. Wilkinson and Pickett argue that widespread inequality helps increase a huge range of social ills, with the result that everyone suffers – even the most well off. Inequality in their view isn’t just bad for the poor, it’s also bad for the rich.

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Opinion: Support the Equality Pledge

By Geoffrey Payne | Published 7th April 2010 - 11:50 am

For many years the researchers Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett have been investigating the relationship between wealth, inequality, and measurements of a good society. The measurements of a good society would be low levels of crime, low levels of teenage pregnancy, good health in terms of long life expectancy, low levels of obesity – and many other measures besides.

During their research they have published books on this, and finally they published the book “The Spirit Level“, which has had the biggest impact of all.

There are many countries that are poor, and clearly they need economic growth in order to …

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Opinion: Poverty, equality and solutions

By Stephen Marshall | Published 11th March 2010 - 10:50 am

Politicians talk constantly about “lifting people out of poverty”, mending our “broken society”, giving people “equality of opportunity” and, more rarely “creating a more equal society”.

What none of them seem to be prepared to face is the fact that people are poor principally because they have less money than others; and that when poverty goes along with a feeling that it is not going to be possible, whatever one does, to get out of poverty, it does not matter what “opportunities” are provided – poor people will see through the pretence that the opportunities apply to them …

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Inequality: the enemy between us?

By The Voice | Published 21st December 2009 - 11:21 am

Richard Wilkinson, Emeritus Professor of Social Epidemiology, University of Nottingham and Kate Pickett, Professor of Epidemiology, University of York are co-directors of The Equality Trust and authors of The Spirit Level: why more equal societies almost always do better.

There is a long list of health and social problems which tend to be more common in the most deprived areas of Britain. The further down the social ladder you look, the more common they are. The pattern is the same whether you look at heart disease, homicides, teenage birth rates, mental illness, imprisonment, drug abuse, obesity, poor maths and literacy scores, low levels of child wellbeing, life expectancy or infant mortality.

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Posted in Op-eds, The Independent View | Also tagged , | 12 Comments