The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger (46 page)

Read The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger Online

Authors: Richard Wilkinson,Kate Pickett

Tags: #Social Science, #Economics, #General, #Economic Conditions, #Political Science, #Business & Economics

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The Equality Trust

If reading this book leaves you wanting to do something to help reduce inequality, then please visit The Equality Trust web site at
www.equalitytrust.org.uk
. There you will find downloadable slides which we hope you will use, a downloadable lecture on DVD, short summaries of the evidence, answers to frequently asked questions, and suggestions for campaigning.

Having discovered how seriously societies are damaged by great inequality we felt we had to do what we could to make the evidence better known. The Trust was set up as a not-for-profit organization to educate and campaign on the benefits of a more equal society. Its work depends on donations from individuals and organizations sharing our vision.

We hope you will sign the Equality Charter, put your name down to receive the newsletter, make a donation, give us your ideas and join or form a local equality group. Most of all we hope you will use the evidence we have started to put together to spread the word and convince others of the need to reduce inequality. In politics, words are action.

The Equality Trust is not a large organization able to implement policies, run campaigns and orchestrate things on your behalf. Instead it aims to make people better informed and provide resources to stimulate and strengthen their own political and educational activities – whether through talking to friends and colleagues, passing on our web address, writing blogs, local campaigning, sending letters to newspapers and politicians, or raising the issues in the mass media.

Our aim is to create a groundswell of opinion in favour of great equality. Without that politicians can do very little. Egalitarian sentiments are hidden close to the hearts of vast numbers of people of all shades of political opinion. Most people know how much we sacrifice to consumerism and know that there are few things nicer than relaxing with friends and equals. They also know that it is family, friends and community that matter to happiness and know that our present way of life is ruining the planet. The culture of the last few decades has reduced us to closet egalitarians: it is time we came out of the woodwork and set a course for sanity.

For our parents
Don and Marion Chapman
George and Mary Guillemard

Copyright © 2009 by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett
Foreword copyright 2010 by Robert B. Reich
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address
Bloomsbury Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

Published by Bloomsbury Press, New York

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Wilkinson, Richard G.
The spirit level : why greater equality makes societies stronger /
Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett.—1st American ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-60819-036-2 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. Equality. 2. Social mobility. 3. Quality of life. 4. Social policy. I. Pickett, Kate. II. Title

HM821.W55 2009
306.01—dc22
2009030428

First published in Great Britain by Allen Lane, a division of the Penguin Group, in 2009
First published in the United States by Bloomsbury Press in 2010
This e-book edition published in 2010

E-book ISBN: 978-1-60819-170-3

www.bloomsburypress.com

Table of Contents

PART ONE Material Success, Social Failure

1 The end of an era

2 Poverty or inequality?

3 How inequality gets under the skin

PART TWO The Costs of Inequality