Response to Lord Griffiths

Submitted by Kathryn Busby on 23 October 2009

On Tuesday this week, Lord Brian Griffiths (Vice Chairman of Goldman Sachs) took part in a panel discussion of financial regulation and morality, at St Paul's Cathedral. He said:

"We have to accept that inequality is a way of achieving greater opportunity and prosperity for all."

This is Professor Richard Wilkinson's response:

"Lord Griffiths is wrong.  We do not “have to accept that inequality is a way of achieving greater opportunity and prosperity for all”.  Quite the contrary.  The evidence shows that societies with bigger income differences between rich and poor have less social mobility, do not have faster economic growth rates, and are less innovative.  What they do have is worse health and more of almost every social problem: bigger prison populations, more teen births, worse mental health, more drug problems, lower levels of child wellbeing and weaker community life.

His Lordship is badly out of touch – no doubt partly because of his huge income.  Rather than benefiting us all, the bonus culture increases status competition and damages us all."