"Economic inequality as a political cause as an issue of social and moral concern as a subject of academic research is at long last having its moment world leaders from president obama to pope francis are giving speeches and sermons about it political candidates like bill de blasio and elizabeth warren have scored upset victories with campaigns that emphasized themes of economic inequality the democratic party taking its cue is adopting economic inequality as the theme of the 2014 midterm elections perhaps the most intriguing recent development is that economic elites are showing distinct symptoms of unease and even panic at the country s growing populist mood the timing could hardly be better for the publication this month of several important new books about economic inequality which i plan to discuss in this space but first i want to write about another notable book on the subject that was published toward the tail end of 2013 the killing fields of inequality polity is by the eminent swedish sociologist g ran therborn author of what does the ruling class do when it rules and other classic works comprising just 185 pages it s a short book that packs a powerful punch therborn s book is a panoramic survey of inequality across the globe in its various dimensions theoretical historical empirical like other recent works killing fields looks at the causes of the dizzying rise in economic inequality we ve seen in recent decades in most of the developed world but its greatest strength lies in the succinct but compelling answers it provides to three of the most important inequality related questions first what exactly do we mean by inequality second what is inequality doing to us and finally why should we care about it first let s deal with the what do we mean by inequality question therborn finds the definition of equality developed by economist amartya sen to be most helpful equality according to sen is equality of capability to function fully as a human being such a capability clearly entails survival health and aids for disability freedom and knowledge education to choose one s life path and resources to pursue it inequalities then are multidimensional barriers to human functioning in the world which are violations of human rights according to therborn there are three main types of inequality vital inequality which refers to inequalities regarding health outcomes and life expectancies resource inequality which refers to economic inequalities of various sorts and a concept he calls he calls existential inequality which he defines as the unequal allocation of personhood i e of autonomy dignity degrees of freedom and of rights to respect and self development the most eye opening and disturbing passages of the book are those that concern vital inequality or the impact of inequality on life and health this is where the killing fields of the title comes in inequality kills states therborn in the book s first sentence consider these statistics between 1990 and 2008 life expectancy of white american men declined by three years and low educated white american women saw their life expectancy decline by five years the life expectancy between the richest and poorest neighborhoods in glasgow a difference of twenty eight years is the same as that between the uk and haiti the uk s famous whitehall studies indicate that the odds of poor health and premature death increased as the employee s status in the civil service bureaucracy decreased even controlling for use of alcohol tobacco and other factors the restoration of capitalism to the former soviet union is associated with a stunning 4 million excess deaths there a number of studies show that unemployment is associated with a significant number of excess deaths even when controlling for other health indicators those examples and many others that therborn cites which make the correlation between hierarchy and death all too clear are harrowing therborn wields a masterful command of an array of fascinating statistcs yet high inequality societies are far from inevitable therborn argues that capitalism and capitalists can under certain circumstances be taught how to behave income inequality in the nordic countries in the early 1980s was about the same as it was in the communist bloc egalitarianism he claims continues to hold a powerful appeal and there are at least three major reasons why high levels of economic inequality tend to be deeply troubling to many people first therborn notes there is the illegitimacy of today s rentier capitalism many among the one percent derive their wealth not from hard productive work thrift and honest exchange but from connections parental and or political from gambling and from sidestepping existing norms and regulations secondly he says the positive lure of egalitarian enlightened societies where nobody is outcast or humiliated and where everybody has a chance to develop his her capabilities finally there is what he calls the social cost of other people s misery without support from any representative sample surveys i would venture the proposition that most middle class kolkatans cairenes kinois angelenos or paulistas would prefer to walk or drive the cities or say paris or stockholm where they will not get confronted with abject misery where streets and public spaces are clean not because the miserable have been chased away but because society itself is cleaned of abject misery most middle class people are likely to be happier without walled in seclusion barbed wire and armed body guards without whom the happy middle classes of northwestern europe are living therborn has a gift for crafting paragraphs like the one above capable of awakening the reader like a jolt and so upon reading that passage i reflected upon how much abject human misery i take for granted every time i step outside my apartment for a cup of coffee the obstacle course of panhandlers i dodge the dazed looked homeless woman with the shopping cart whose gaze i avoid yet just blocks away from this terrible human suffering loom the gleaming offices of the highest paid university president in the land the university of chicago s robert zimmer pocketed 3 4 million in 2011 the year for which the most recent figures are available therborn s elegant eloquent book is perhaps most valuable in the way it forces us to take a fresh look at the social order around us and its mounting and appalling human costs he closes the book with these sentences the battle is about to start nobody knows how it will end which side will you be on it s a very good question
Keep on reading: How Economic Inequality Kills
Keep on reading: How Economic Inequality Kills