While the swivel-eyed TaxPayers’ Alliance and Policy Exchange continue to have a go at Professors Wilkinson and Pickett – authors of ‘The Spirit Level: why equality is better for everyone’ – at least some on the right seem to have been listening to the independent academics.
As Left Foot Forward reported on Monday, several recent publications have challenged the central conclusion of the book that more unequal societies do worse than more equal societies, on a variety of social outcomes.
All the main political parties are talking about ‘fairness’. They all say inequalities are too big and need to be reduced.
There is now a fairly substantial body of evidence showing the ill effects of income inequality on society, but not yet much consensus on what to do about it, particularly given the public’s seemingly contradictory attitude towards the issue; thattest
The ‘Broken society’ that David Cameron has focused on is the fault of the rising inequality that primarily took place under Margaret Thatcher.
David Cameron’s approach to reducing inequality has come under attack from respected academics. Wilkinson and Pickett suggest he must address incomes at the top
