Social epidemiologist Richard Wilkinson: How economic inequality harms societies

[swag]

Run time: 16:55 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ7LzE3u7Bw   Posted on YouTube: October 24, 2011 By YouTube Member: TEDtalksDirector Views on YouTube: 291   Posted on DU: October 24, 2011 By DU Member: swag Views on DU: 1539

 

[LongTomH]

1. Richard Wilkinson has a blog in the UK

The Equality Trust is dedicated to discussion of the issues of equality and inequality and finding answers to the UK's growing inequality.

Prof. Wilkinson's book: The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger has started a storm of discussion and controversy on both sides of the Atlantic.

One sign of the impact that The Spirit Level is having on public discussion is, that someone on the right has been commissioned to write a 'refutation:' The Spirit Level Delusion: Fact-Checking the Left's New Theory of Everything. The Spirit Level Delusion only got 9 reviews on Amazon, which were evenly split between 5 star and 1 star ratings; The Spirit Level got 63 reviews - heavily weighted toward 5 star (34) and 4 star (18) ratings, All the editorial reviews were positive.

[indepat]

2. Who would have ever thunk income inequality, which promotes widespread poverty, crime,

untreated medical conditions, substandard housing, hunger, and the like could ever harm society? Maybe someone should put a bug in the ear of our fearless leaders in government, which by its policies, promotes unbridled greed and white-crime lawlessness, and mostly protects such law-breakers and their corporations from meaningful accountability, much less prosecution. :patriot:

[stockholmer]

3. 'rugged individualism' to get the top tiers & 'upward mobility' are 2 of the US's biggest myths

Like Wilkerson said, "If you want to live the American dream, move to Denmark".

Stress kills, and I can vouch that the several years I spent in the States (mostly NYC) where by far the most stressful of my life. I just cannot wrap my head around the 'live to work' instead of 'work to live' ethos that pervaded every area of the country I was in. The minute you mention this to many there, you are labeled as an advocate for so-called slackers and general laziness. It is truly the most massive psy-op ever carried off by a ruling group in history. There is nothing to be proud of for working yourself to an early death for low to mid wages just to say that you did it and 'sucked it up' because that is 'the right thing to do'.

[BrendaBrick]

4. Always nice to get another perspective

I have also heard that folks from other countries speak about how lonely they are when they come to the states.

One of the reasons I like to watch foreign films so much is because many times the focus is on the intricacies of relationships (as opposed to many of the cookie-cutter, shallow ones here) and it kind of gives me a sneak peak into the lives of others around the world and their priorities (as viewed form the context of the film).

I also think that there is still somewhat of a hard-core puritanical work ethic still at play which permeates much of the US mindset, though that seems to be changing.