Inequality is unsustainable | Richard Wilkinson
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- čas přidán 29. 05. 2024
- Richard Wilkinson in a global guru in the social and economic factors in how we live, and when we die. He's an expert in inequality, legacies of poverty, and author of The Spirit Level - a best selling treatise on why inequality, more than anything else, is tearing irreparable rifts in our societies.
Notes:
4:15 3 examples of effects of low social status independent of absolute material standards I think we endlessly confuse the two. A study by…
25:20 “The first papers showing that health was worse in more unequal countries and violence was more common in more unequal countries came out in the 1970s. There are now about 60 papers on violence and inequality. I had said that for 200-300 after doing a review on health and inequality and Ichiro Kawachi and Subu Subramanian at the Harvard School of Public Health said no, it’s approaching 400 papers. This stuff just doesn’t get out into public knowledge.”
46:34 “If you can really think that you can get all Canadians to stop judging each other by status, stop judging your internal worth from your external wealth well then ok, but I don’t think that you can. What you’ve got to do is to lower the income differences between us. Make status differences less obvious. Lower the stakes.”
47:15 With increased status anxiety, we thinkg there are two difference responses:
Self doubt/withdrawn/depression, or self enhancement/narcissism
49:00 “We’ve got good studies showing there is more consumerism in more unequal societies.” Status competition
53:35 “We have to extend democracy into the workplace.” Harvard business school suggests that more democratic companies perform reliably as well and better in terms of productivity.
Thank you for these notes!
You know I find myself to be rather charismatic - I'm not saying that to be arrogant or anything, but if I do have a strength its getting along with people.
I've been on Wilkinson's train since he did that Ted talk all those years ago.
I have been unable to really get people to grasp this issue, even pretty much repeating word for word his lectures, along with his graphics - which to me, they were so convincing.
Folks still think you mean poverty. I'll grant that this is little bit complex to wrap your head around, how social status can affect so many things, but I am endlessly frustrated with my inability to convince people WITH DATA that this is a very pressing matter.
I think that every contemporary issue in American society and other societies around the world hold their roots in societal inequality.
Things like mass shootings for example. There are obviously other contributing factors to that, but the doubt that societal inequality is a major contributing factor is... It's ridiculous.
I will probably die frustrated
Good to hear you. I have been a spiritual seeker since Harvard around 1990, and have been an activist at some level as well. I focused on not-for-profits like Greenpeace, and their shift to corporate campaigns, and health food stores. Then I discovered food co-ops and credit unions, and community personal growth workshops. Buddhist meditation, yoga, tai chi, and Non-Violent Communication, and Quaker Christianity. I suggest you get involved with some efforts like that, because you´re up against self-esteem and ideology.
@@robinhoodstfrancis As long as those things don't lead to a place where inaction becomes a massage that calms and minimizes the urgency of mending the real impacts of inequality, that's fine. Food co-ops and Community Kitchens can be helpful. Neighborhood improvement co-ops and Guerilla Gardening are cool too, right?
I'm kind of amazed that this topic doesn't attract more "hits". Maybe the world's truly gone mad.
@@PeteGannon Well, there are multiple levels of action going on, and that need to be understood and tracked. As the division of labor goes, some people will have more knowledge than others. It´s about establishing a necessary and sufficient level of understanding and action for enough people.
Your suggestions are also good in all likelihood. I like to employ the Food Co-op reference as a formal business organization. It also relates directly that way to credit union local co-op banks and green power co-ops. Yet, I also refer to Greenpeace´s Greener Electronics and Detox My Fashion campaigns. I prefer to add Spain´s Mondragon industrial co-op network and Social Europe level operations and policies that can both suggest expansion possibilities to "food co-op" type enterprise, and the need to achieve feats like living wages at Fast Food and Big Biz concerns, as in Denmark and Germany, and probably to one degree or another other parts of Social Europe.
Yeah, sigh. America´s Big Biz has been effective in indoctrinating and conditioning people. It´s a process. Good to hear from you.
I understand your frustration. I couldn't get anyone to understand anything about income inequality until after occupy Wall street. Occupy Wall Street help people learn what the 1% meant.
I found the spirit level book and videos by Wilkinson and Pickett very helpful with people that are already pretty liberal and high iq.
For people who are not liberal oy high IQ, there's an excellent video from PBS that you can find on youtube.
Just Google the words PBS, paul piff, Solomon and "why those who feel they have more give less."
Great talk. Thanks for posting.
Super overview!
sadly to this very day you will see people actually say
"what's wrong with inequality? it's always going to exist!"
its inequality and complacency to inequality that we should also be worried about.
Inequality of what?
@@C_R_O_M________ well socioeconomic comes to mind.
Not a case of SAD, its a case of being Realistic or Unrealistic.
@@clarestucki5151 and tell me what is exactly realistic about socioeconomic inequality…? Is it the argument that I have heard and it’s favor is that we don’t have enough resources to go around yet oddly enough some of the most advanced nations including the United States by the way leads and resources waste. Market systems onto them selves lead in resource waste because it’s not so much about conserving resources it’s about how to sell them in order to generate the maximum profit. So basically conservation of resources is anathema to market systems.
More to the point what is the benefit of Socio economic inequality…?
I can kind of see what you’re talking about with realism and unrealism but to say that Socio economic inequalities are realistic and working against them working against Socio economic inequality is somehow unrealistic well then I just stare so you missed the point entirely.
A key factor is lifestyle self-concept, and local alternative projects. After knocking on doors for consumer activism, my NYC neighborhood had a food co-op, and I visited Zen temples as I followed Sierra Club, and so on.
I grew up in America and was fed the whole "boot strap yourself meritocracy" story. Then I had a few jobs working for some wealthy people. In my mind I thought: if money is an indicator of work, people with lots of money must work very hard. In reality most of the people I worked for either inherited the business, or had royalties from family holdings which bought the business. Often the businesses ran at a deficit, which I didn't think was possible in a free market capitalist system as the business would die. But we don't live in a free market meritocratic society, we live in a feudal /aristocracy system. I thought WWII was fought for the freedom and right of the common person to make something of themselves if they desire and show up to work doing their best. How did the british caste system shit permeant into american culture? I thought americans didn't put up with that stuff, tea party anyone?
You clearly learned nothing from working with wealthy people. They have a mindset that you do not share. I'll give you an example.
Have you ever used one of those "Bullet" blenders to make a smoothie? They are incredibly loud. A person with a poor mindset (you) would stick your fingers in your ears. A person with a rich mindset would stop to ask "how can I make this blender less noisy?" The person who solves the problem by producing a product that is successful in the market becomes rich. No one ever got rich by sticking their fingers in their ears.
@@psychicspy great example and allegory.
There are many people who inherit great wealth and spend it to smithereens. Your observing bias involves those that don't and actually manage it well. Your sample is inadequately small and your conclusion arbitrary but you don't have the training to realize it by yourself. Thankfully, people like me do and can point it out.
Is he the Richard H. Wilkinson that edited Egyptology Today?
Some people are so poor all they have is money
Economic impact is controlled by individual fesr base
IN GOES NAIVES Pastors Spiritual School =Aristide InConcept about Gonaives..=Nous LES Haitiens tout entiere in ECONOMIES...
Whats with Greece 🇬🇷 always bring off by itself?
is there a way to make things more equal through competition and decentralization rather than taxes and socialism ??
You get it either by more equal distribution or redistribution. Even within socialist thought you have people advocating for one or the other, and both have been demonized as "evil big government" In history you can find examples where the church served the function in various different ways, but those would by todays standards considered theocratic so the very church was big government...
Competition when given primacy just rewards success and failure by compound rewards and punishments, and I am not sure something can be done about it without pulling competition down from the primary role.
Spiritual practice like Buddhism, yoga, and tai chi help transform and revive Jesus´ integrity. As with the US´s Social Gospel movement and 12 step group Recovery, the sense of food co-ops, ESOP supermkts, etc and Oxfam campaigns etc. That´s basically the history of Denmark.
opportunity zone
Competition and decentralization are at the core of anti-trust policies, which are good, but you cannot reduce inequalities without state intervention and progressive taxation: free market does not regulate itself towards low unemployment and higher salaries (direct and indirect). However I am not an advocate of central planning. I think a mixed system (private firms+public intervention, through keynesian policies) is the best. The point is to continually fight inequalities without harming innovation in the private (or creating public firms if you don't have private entrapreneurs)
😂😂😂
Inequality is the natural state of the world. One animal has always had more or less food than the next. One plant more or less sun light than the next. One person more or less of whatever it is they need or desire than the next person. Causality naturally produces different levels of social status, but forcing those who are well off to contribute to the needs of those who are less well off is not the answer.
We are all unequal, always have been, always will be. We have to live with it.
why is that
“We have to live with that”
That’s a rather defeatist attitude.
False. For the majority of our human lives, we've been living in hunter gatherer egalitarian societies. Inequality is a pretty new concept not older than 10.000 years.
That's a blah statement, a throw the towel in before the end is nigh looser. Seriously give me more insight into your think spots before they disappear.
@@raewynurwin4256 We are equal in breath, heart beat, digestion, all with 24 hours per day. We are only unequal in intellect.
We all care about thing not equally like I like fries more the others or I like ford more then others you must be mentalill to think we should all be equal in any way your spread and spay so much time to nosence it's unbeliable
Low IQ populations are what is unsustainable.
The ignored issue that is continuing to not only be ignored but in the US, there is an encouragement to increase low IQ populations as if that would some how lead to some sort of better and more utopian society.
you could easily argue that high IQ populations are the unsustainable ones. The genes of dinosaurs were extremely successful at staying alive. Extremely. Humans are very very unlikely to last anywhere near as long. Intelligence, it seems, does not work.
@@taoyeahright How is low IQ being encouraged?
Your remark makes no sense. It is as if you didn't even listen to the video before you decided to put a right-wing talking point into the comment section.
Inequality of what? (I'm not even bothering to watch this guy unless there is a clear title of what this lecture is about)!
Your loss
he explains in the beginning
Economic inequality, economic gaps between different social groups/classes.
@@eriksolforsthat are created by minds like his by intervening with market dynamics. The oldest mistake of all.
@@C_R_O_M________ so material differences between people are “created” by academics?
Was it market forces that created the divide within feudalism? Or the divide in 19th- early 20th century USA with the Robber Barons, was that divide between rich and poor created by the market or by academics?
Too summarize.....
> diversity = > inequality = > mistrust = > violence.
> homogeneity = < inequality = > trust = < violence.
alright yoda calm down xx
No that’s not what he claimed, cultural and ethnicity had nothing to do with it. Economic inequality is the cause, not the outcome. That’s his whole point.