Letter to the Wall Street Journal
Submitted by Kathryn Busby on 21 July 2010
 Letter
to the Wall Street Journal
Professors Kate Pickett &
Richard Wilkinson
Edited version published in the WSJ on 21st July 2010
In our book, The
Spirit Level: Why equality is better for everyone (Bloomsbury, 2010) we show that reducing income
inequality will benefit almost everybody in society - including
those who prefer not to believe it.
In Un-Level Ground (WSJ July 9), Sanandaji,
Sanandaji, Malm and Snowdon's attack on The Spirit
Level falls wide of the mark. As epidemiologists
with decades of experience in analysing the social determinants of
population health, our research - unlike our critics' - has
undergone rigorous scrutiny through peer-review. The Spirit Level
represents a synthesis of our own and other's research, and cites
over 300 studies. Our critics seem unaware of the depth and breadth
of this research.
Our book contains
analyses of inequality in relation to 29 health and social problems.
Principally it shows that problems which tend to be more common lower
down the social ladder - including violence, drug abuse, teenage
birth rates, low social cohesion, child wellbeing, infant mortality,
incarceration rates etc. are worse in more unequal societies. But we
also show that inequality harms even the affluent. We do not confuse
correlation with causation. We show the causal pathways and apply
standard epidemiological criteria for assessing causality.
Unlike the authors of Un-Level Ground who
mix richer with poorer countries, we confined our analyses to rich
countries alone before repeating our analyses using official data for
the 50 US states. Again unlike the authors, we use income inequality
data from the United Nations, rather than the OECD, because the OECD
data were not intended primarily for cross-national comparisons.
However, even if we test our results using the OECD measures we find
28 of 29 relationships are still significant.
Life expectancy is
the only exception and is one of the weaker international
associations in The Spirit Level, though it is strong among US
states. However, there are two new studies Sanandaji et al seem unaware
of. One, published in the British Medical Journal by Kondo
and colleagues combines data from other studies and shows
unequivocally that, even after controlling for the individual incomes
or education of 60 million people, inequality is related to
significantly higher mortality rates. The second, by Clarkwest and
colleagues in Social Science & Medicine, shows that US
states with bigger increases in inequality between 1970 and 2000 had
less improvement in life expectancy than those with smaller
increases.
There has been a
positive response to our work across the political spectrum. We
spoke at meetings of all the UK's main political parties. We work
to a simple principle - we will talk to anybody about our work but
will not align with any party. There are, of course, moral arguments
for greater equality, and we have been overwhelmed by how often
people tell us that The Spirit Level confirms their
experiences and suffering in very unequal societies. Importantly, we
show that creativity and social mobility flourish in more equal
societies.
But our work rests
on empirical evidence, not moral arguments or anecdotes. We invite
Journal readers to visit our website,
where we will continue to provide links to research from reputable
sources on this important issue.
Professor Kate
Pickett, University of York, UK
Professor Emeritus
Richard Wilkinson, University of Nottingham, UK
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