SmartRemarks

And now, a brief interlude from all the Sherlockiana for a bit of politics and economics. After hearing a radio interview today about a fascinating new book, I’ve done a bit of digging and realized I may have come a bit late to the game, for—at least in England—this book has been gathering serious attention for the better part of a year now. It deserves to do the same here in the U.S.

The interview was with Prof. Richard Wilkinson of Nottingham University, co-author (with Kate Pickett of York University) of The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger. (The title is perhaps a bit less than apt; the authors apparently wanted to call it “Evidence-Based Politics,” which to my ear would have been superior.) Wilkinson and Pickett, epidemiologists both, started out studying data on public health outcomes and wound up with a project much larger than they had originally envisioned. Their data demonstrate beyond any reasonable doubt that economic inequality within a society, regardless of overall wealth, is the single biggest predictor of a wide range of other social ills, from life expectancy to violent crime and far, far more.

Read the rest of this entry »