In my most-recent column, I presented recent epidemiological evidence that the inequality built into a society underlies the sense many of us have that the country is going in the wrong direction.
I referenced "The Spirit Level," a book by researchers Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, because it reveals how the severity of social problems increases in a society according to the width of its inequality gap.
Problem symptoms involve areas such as physical health and longevity, mental health, addictions, social mobility, educational achievement levels, child well-being, and rates of imprisonment, violence, and teen motherhood. Programs to address one of these while ignoring the root cause of inequality tend to be costly but ineffective.
We are riding the crest of a wave that is not sustainable. There is no stable status quo, but an insidious snowballing of inequality. The results tax us all, with diminishing levels of trust, reciprocity, cooperation, social accountability.
Our brains are wired with powerful links between survival and social connection. Inequality hurts people. Exclusion and inferior status undercut human health and productivity. Being humane is practical. The atmosphere of the group affects everybody, and no individual's well-being can be fully insulated from that truth.
There is now a swing back toward aristocracy with the 1 percent growing their unchecked and undemocratic power, often through corporations. This trend is against the flow of history, which has put absolute royal power under constitutional restraint, has seen the growth of legislative democracy, the right to a fair trial, voting rights for all citizens, health services, employee and even union rights, etc. Achievements like this signify long-range egalitarian trends.
We like to think of ourselves as forward-looking, full of genuine ingenuity and very democratic in the world. But the U.S. society is statistically at the unhealthy end on the scale of social problems.
The Scandinavian countries and Japan are ranked the world's best in social cohesion and stability, with the lowest degree of social problems among their peoples. It has been shown that big-league baseball teams with smaller pay differences do better than the teams paid less equally.
We have yet to grasp how the inequality gaps are at the root of our national dysfunction, and are acting as if more economic growth will be the automatic ticket. But the growth we have is mainly collecting at the top. There is no ready alternative vision of how to make society a better place for the majority of the people.
Some kind of deep transformation of our culture is needed, and it looks like it is going to have to come from the bottom up, somehow. For the Scandinavians, income redistribution works, and it seems not to matter how the equality is achieved in order to offset the terrible collateral casualties that unequal systems create.
We extol the idea of brotherhood, but in reality the rich powers make every effort to play us off against each other. They are an aristocracy, whose shenanigans in the financial world triggered the housing downturn crisis (see the Countrywide Financial scandal of prejudicial loans victimizing blacks). They get bailed out while we get cautioned.
But the defenders of millionaires and billionaires solemnly intone that these are the "job creators" who must not be taxed. The Supreme Court decided to allow big-money interests to propagandize politically in the nation (Citizens United). Their message: government programs to improve equality are improper and cause deficits. They constantly represent that what is good for them is in our best interests.
When blacks in the civil rights movement began standing up against a legacy of brutal and often-violent suppression, their demands to get the boots of discrimination off their necks were labeled as "violent" (antisocial and illegitimate). The effort was to rank them among the "undeserving" (who deserve unequal status).
Big money finances "think-tank" legitimacy for efforts that decrease equality among us. But organizations such as People for the American Way work to shine a spotlight on judicial partiality to corporate interests; on efforts to rig election laws; undercutting civil rights, education, gay rights, financial regulatory reforms and union bargaining rights.
Privatizing Social Security and ending Medicare are on the list. Minimum or living wage standards, unemployment insurance, public health laws and consumer protection standards are all suspect to the business aristocracy.
A small bed of roses within an acre of scrappy devil-grass does not make a park. Nor would a private greenhouse full of rare orchids. We must find the mentality to ensure that the GNP is distributed more equitably among our citizenry, period.
William Masters can be reached at wmasters@thedailystar.com. The views expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect those of The Daily Star and its editorial board.
Columns
Inequalities breed social dysfunction
- Big Chuck D'Imperio
- Cary Brunswick
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Some wisdom is best passed down through books
I was visiting a friend out-of-town recently and the subject of providing a "reading list" to young people came up in conversation. He said years ago he had asked a respected acquaintance in Oneonta to compile such a list for his teenage daughter, to help her be better prepared for life, culture, education, politics and people.
Continued ... - Let pragmatism, not politics, determine birth control debate
- As Center Street Elementary goes, so goes Center City
- U.S. intervention in Syria's uprising would be a gamble
- Santorum, Obama both got it wrong on Honduras
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- Chuck Pinkey
- Guest Column
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If we don’t develop a sustainable system, who will?
In Otsego County’s local elections last fall, a number of candidates — most of them on the independent Sustainable Otsego line — ran on an anti-fracking, pro-sustainability platform. They recognized that our current way of life — dependent on increasingly scarce, costly and polluting fossil fuels — cannot continue.
Continued ... - Time to get off the bus and on the computer
- Cuomo's Machiavellian maneuvers are a danger
- Home rule laws aren't a radical idea
- Sustainable shouldn't be a dirty word
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If we don’t develop a sustainable system, who will?
- Lisa Miller
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Being a parent is a constant learning process
I am sitting cross-legged on the floor in the dressing room, waiting for Allie's dance number to be called. The cave girl costume has been donned, the jazz shoes double-tied, the hair pulled back, the requisite dab of lipstick applied.
Continued ... - Healthy doesn't have to mean expensive
- A family era ends with close of Potter series
- Independent stores make up for loss of Borders
- Untethered from the cable box
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Being a parent is a constant learning process
- Mark Simonson
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Perfect attendance by Saturday’s Bread for 20 years in Oneonta
Oneonta became a settlement and has been a place to do one's "trading," whether it was the 18th century, or 2012, because of the five valleys that converge here. Only the places of doing the "trading" have changed a bit over the last 100 years, and Oneonta remains a place that attracts visitors and has always been a decent place to live and work.
Continued ...
100 Years Ago - Recalling the Hindenburg, John D. Rockefeller in May 1937
- Oneonta residents had diversions aplenty in the spring of 1952
- Damaschke essential to ensuring Oneonta baseball in 1927
- Area tunes to WONT in November 1972
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Perfect attendance by Saturday’s Bread for 20 years in Oneonta
- Rick Brockway
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Climbing is one thing, but skydiving?
OUTDOORS COLUMN BY RICK BROCKWAY ... Last week, my friend George and I returned to the Gunks for another rock-climbing adventure. After last week's column, I asked about the rattlesnakes and was told not to worry. Rattlers are usually quite timid and will avoid people as much as possible. It's the copperheads that'll give you trouble. They're aggressive and will stand their ground to defend it. Oh great!!
- Rattlesnakes may be closer than you think, so pay attention
- Spring is here, so fishing should pick up soon
- Sneaky fox may be the next animal looking to horse around
- Pass down the rush of turkey hunting to your kids this weekend
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Climbing is one thing, but skydiving?
- Sam Pollak
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I'm happy with our kids to a certain degree
It was several years ago, and I was in the kitchen, telling my eldest daughter and my then-teenaged son about the person who was taking over as publisher at The Daily Star.
Continued ... - I get by with a little help from my 'friends'
- It’s not easy for a politics junkie to get off the stuff
- The Encyclopaedia Britannica in print, unmourned by me
- Angelo Dundee was always a good man to have in your corner
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- William Masters
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Time for lawmakers who put needs of society first
Richard Lugar, after six terms as a Republican senator -- known for his middle of the road rationality and his foreign policy finesse -- has been ousted by a Tea Party extremist backed by outside right-wing funding.
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War not worth gambling with lives of soldiers
Are you not tired of our war in Afghanistan? It had a point, once, after 9/11. Bush couldn't distinguish his myopic personal agendas from the nation's needs and let Osama escape, dropping the ball entirely, causing many deaths.
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Titanic was a microcosm of U.S. economic disparity
Haunting reminders of the Titanic tragedy have wafted over us with the centenary of its sinking. The maiden voyage of an impressive, state of the art vessel, was a little like that of the Challenger space shuttle, at the cutting edge of developing technology. But the shuttle carried our pride in science and space exploration, not hundreds and hundreds of people.
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William Masters: Nation stands divided between 'us' and 'them'
In February, Trayvon Martin was shot dead as "suspicious" by a volunteer neighborhood watch man. The case has aroused community reaction in Sanford, Fla., and is still echoing across the country.
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A quarterback can't win the game alone
What is the relationship between democracy and wealth? Democracy is a political system, while wealth relates to economics. We have equal political rights, but we don't all have money. Extreme differences destroy the continuity of community solidarity.
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Time for lawmakers who put needs of society first
