Monday 26 April 2010
The Other Hand - Chris Cleave
Hard to say much about this without disobeying the instruction in the back cover blurb to refrain from telling people what happens... but this is an extremely compelling story about the power of chance encounters and the impact of people's choices in the way they respond to each other and to situations. Much of the subject matter is truly shocking and "should" make for a very bleak and draining read, but somehow there is a dreamlike beauty to it - coupled with some very funny observations and well-rounded characters - which makes it feel uplifting and strangely enjoyable to read.
The Spirit Level - Richard Wilkinson & Kate Pickett
A clearly written and yet powerful book with the subtitle "why equality is better for everyone", this struck me as one of the best presented books based on mathematical findings that I've ever come across, although I'm prepared to believe that this is because my preferences tended towards simpler writing that usual due to reading this while pregnant, and therefore tired & hormonal!
The key argument is that once a certain level of economic development has been reached, equality is more significant than absolute wealth as a determinant of wellbeing within a society. The evidence presented here is based on showing strong correlations between inequality and many different measures relating to health and social wellbeing (including infant mortality, homicide rates, obesity, teen pregnancy etc) when measured across developed countries or US states. It is striking how the same countries appear at the "good" and "bad" ends of the graphs for each measure (with Japan & the Scandinavian countries consistently doing well, and Portugal, the UK, and - often spectacularly - the USA doing poorly). The two points that stuck with me most strongly were that the effects of this are felt at almost all levels of society (i.e. it's not just at the levels of extreme relative deprivation that people feel negative effects within an unequal society), and that the mechanism by which equality is achieved is less important than the result (as shown by comparing Japan, where pre-taxation incomes are more similar but goverment intervention is low, to other societies where this effect is achieved through redistributive taxes and benefits).
I liked the idea, apparently taken from Richard Layard, that "the consumption of the rich reduces everyone else's satisfaction with what they have, by showing it up as inferior" and that this dissatisfaction is "a cost which the rich impose on the rest of society" which could reasonably be used as an argument to justify a 60% tax rate on the better-off. I was also persuaded by the sections that attempted to interpret the data by reference to the corrosive effects of inequality on communities, and on the dangers of the increased - and often desperate - focus on status that results from greater inequality. Some of the other conclusions, for example democratic employee-ownership of businesses as part of a possible solution, while appealing to me, seemed less grounded in the data, but on the whole I found this a very convincing book.
An ongoing campaign has grown out of this book - see http://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/ - and there are some slides available there showing the key findings presented in the book.
The key argument is that once a certain level of economic development has been reached, equality is more significant than absolute wealth as a determinant of wellbeing within a society. The evidence presented here is based on showing strong correlations between inequality and many different measures relating to health and social wellbeing (including infant mortality, homicide rates, obesity, teen pregnancy etc) when measured across developed countries or US states. It is striking how the same countries appear at the "good" and "bad" ends of the graphs for each measure (with Japan & the Scandinavian countries consistently doing well, and Portugal, the UK, and - often spectacularly - the USA doing poorly). The two points that stuck with me most strongly were that the effects of this are felt at almost all levels of society (i.e. it's not just at the levels of extreme relative deprivation that people feel negative effects within an unequal society), and that the mechanism by which equality is achieved is less important than the result (as shown by comparing Japan, where pre-taxation incomes are more similar but goverment intervention is low, to other societies where this effect is achieved through redistributive taxes and benefits).
I liked the idea, apparently taken from Richard Layard, that "the consumption of the rich reduces everyone else's satisfaction with what they have, by showing it up as inferior" and that this dissatisfaction is "a cost which the rich impose on the rest of society" which could reasonably be used as an argument to justify a 60% tax rate on the better-off. I was also persuaded by the sections that attempted to interpret the data by reference to the corrosive effects of inequality on communities, and on the dangers of the increased - and often desperate - focus on status that results from greater inequality. Some of the other conclusions, for example democratic employee-ownership of businesses as part of a possible solution, while appealing to me, seemed less grounded in the data, but on the whole I found this a very convincing book.
An ongoing campaign has grown out of this book - see http://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/ - and there are some slides available there showing the key findings presented in the book.
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