Our house Thursday night 15th April 2010

A game of bingo seemed the only way to make palatable the widely publicised face-off between the three political leaders saying the same things (with subtle differences) about immigration, education, the economy, the state of Great Britain. So, Thursday evening found me downloading bingo cards from www.onesociety.org.uk .  Pens at the ready, our two teenagers (18 and 16) and I were poised to delete the buzz words that we expected to hear from the mouths of Brown, Cameron and Clegg.

Professor Kate Pickett, author of The Spirit Level: Why equality is better for everyone had alerted me to the existence of these bingo cards.  She gave the WEA Northwest Spring Lecture the night before.  As the book is lying on my bedside table, one-third read, I succumbed to the temptation of listening to somebody talking about the central analysis of the book:

Rich countries do not benefit from economic growth.

A cartoon depicted a banker saying to his son on his knee “Sometimes the rich get richer and the poor get poorer; other times the rich get richer and the poor stay the same”.  As this describes 21st century Britain, the authors have set out a challenge to the three parties to sign the Equality Pledge; see www.equalitytrust.org.uk, for a list of MPs and candidates who have actually signed the Equality Pledge.

According to Pickett and co-author Richard Wilkinson, halving income inequality (the difference between the richest and poorest 20% of the population) would decimate the extent of our social problems.  Mental illness would be reduced by two-thirds, 80% fewer people would be imprisoned and the numbers of teenage women becoming pregnant cut by four-fifths.

Has anyone visualised the impact of releasing people who are traditionally at the bottom of the ladder due to these practical barriers?  What would the non-pregnant teenagers be doing?  How would communities change, with the benefit of black people not restricted by imprisonment or mental health disorders?

Women’s position is worse in unequal societies and the same is true for disabled people, older and other disadvantaged people, who all together form the majority of the population. If the focus on income inequality is key to dealing with all of the other inequalities, why are we bothering with the seven strands of equality?  We know that prejudice such as sexism is worse in hierarchical societies (except Japan which is an outlier in this respect).  Status hierarchies encourage looking down on others, deepening the wounds caused by stigma and stereotype.  Deal with the cause, affect the effect.

Kate described an experiment on monkeys. Their brains were measured for their happiness when they were living alone.  When put into a social context, they developed a hierarchical society.  They were then given free access to cocaine.  Surprise, surprise, the monkeys in the subservient positions helped themselves to far more cocaine than the dominant monkeys – the dominant ones were quite happy, while the subservient monkeys wanted things to make them happy.  Whilst monkeys aren’t human beings, the message about how social problems arise is clear.

In addition, the mistake is often made to prioritise the worst off.  Income inequality cannot be dealt with only by focusing on those who are deprived – some attention must also be paid to reducing the runaway high incomes that are enjoyed by some members of society.

Back to the election debate.  The three of us, with our red, blue and orange pens, crossed off ‘promise’, ‘choice’, ‘deficit’, ‘fairness’, ‘pensions’, ‘ordinary’, ‘Sweden’.   As time went on, the conversations took more and more of a reactionary turn: all three leaders promised to keep virtually all incomers out of the UK, and to discipline school students mercilessly.  We (two voters and one future voter) heckled the television  with words still on our cards. ‘Crime levels!’ ‘Challenges ahead!’ ‘Gap between rich and poor!’ ‘Divided!’ ‘Inequality!’ ‘Living wage!’ ‘Postcode lottery!’ ‘Tolerance!’ ‘Dysfunctional society!’ ‘Sustainable!’ ‘Caring!’ ‘Climate!’ and so on.  (Admittedly, I fell asleep, but I still count this as a success in engaging young people in politics).

The range of issues which are directly affected by changes in income inequality goes beyond ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’:  excessive consumerism is a harmful bi-product of the quest for status in unequal societies, damaging the environment.  So too is the ‘long hours’ working culture, with its negative effect on families and individual well-being.

Kate left us with a final thought: One way that inequality – income differentials – are flattened has been through national crisis.  Unfortunately this has often been a war.  The big question now is: will global warming be recognised as enough of a crisis to provide the same sense of urgency for change?

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