Finished reading The Spirit Level - Why Equality is Better for Everyone by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett. I really enjoyed reading it! It explains how all social problems in society arise from income inequality!! They use many graphs and statistics to prove their point. It's argued in the the book that when a country reaches a certain level affluence it no longer benefits the whole of society. The wealth of a nation only goes so far. If there is great income inequality for even a rich country then the poor as well as the rich will suffer more and be plagued by greater social ills.
The book was released just before the 2008 financial crises. The same things are happening again in 2017. It helps to explain why the recent spike in drug overdoses, thievery, self harm, suicide etc. They printed a website in their book that still exists and it's worth checking out - https://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/ We live in rich countries yet we are plagued by many social woes. In a culture of abundance why are there so many problems and unhappy people. This book explains that the reason is because of inequality. When the top 10% take all the resources and money from the bottom we can expect more health problems, crime and mental illness.
It was a very good book for me to read! I grew up poor and sensed it was unfair to feel like you get punished for being poor. It's obvious stuff. When a society is unequal and then the economy goes down, then the social ills pop out and are easier to notice. You can't just turn a blind eye to the poor and leave them in the ghetto and pretend that income inequality doesn't have a negative impact on the whole of society.
We are all interconnected social beings and that is why income inequality effects us so much. If top execs are taking in 1000's of times more money than the average worker than that has a severe detrimental impact on society. If the distribution were spread more evenly you would have a more equal and safe society.
I feel I haven't said too much about the book here, just the gist. I really encourage others to read it! Cultural illiteracy is the problem of our age! We won't be able to tackle problems in society without knowing the ins and outs and origins of such problems.
Here is a picture of the back of the book so you can read the little blurb there for yourself!
This is a must read book for everybody! Let's go for a more equal society!!