share our wealth. it turns up the future president couldn't have been more correct and now we have the best evidence yet in a landmark new book that the guardian, the leading progressive daily news weekly newspaper in the u.k. suggests may be the most important new book of the year the books british authors, the eminent epidemiologist richard wilkinson and kate pickett are both was -- both with us tonight. the study the health of populations and over the past 20 years, dr. wilkinson has helped break exciting new ground on the impact of the income gaps on our health and life spans. his dramatic work has shown people and deeply on equal societies, be they poor, middle class or affluent live shorter

on healthy lives than their counterparts and societies with narrow gaps between the rich and everyone else. ..

>> that intuition and is more true than we ever imagined. with another society you may feel difference with that for what we have to deal with in our everyday lives. but the difference of inequality of different democracies in has the quality of our lives. before i take you through that day negative i would just clear up one thing.

the title of our book, at "the spirit level" i think many americans do not know what we means. in britain, it has to do with the social gradient and the inequalities. we have graphs and different sloping lines that is the idea of "the spirit level." what i want to start with, is the extraordinary contrast between our societies and what it means between the rich developed societies. almost everything we say this evening is about the rich developed market

democracies. here on the left is a graph of life expectancy on the side. you probably cannot read these but it is we did, norway, switzerland, sp ain, greece, portugal, japan denmark and holland. of hy-vee, parable. they are to take action prices in countries so twice as much as people in those countries and it makes not a difference of life expectancy when the whole society gets richer and no longer helps one whittle. between societies, we have age adjusted death rates of

300,000 white men classified by the median income of the zip code area is. but here on the right to are the lowest death rates and on the left with the highest death rates. this is not simply of a difference the people in this room by social status will tell us something about health and longevity. what this is showing that in time means nothing anymore it is still very important within our society that says we are dealing with is relative position where we are in relation to each other and in a quality. and we will show you what

happens when you stretch out the differences or diminish them. you may be puzzled that of course, we all know the poor countries have a life expectancy like ours. rich and poor countries together, looking at life expectancy as before with national per person in there are rapid gains in life expectancy in the early stages of economic development but did you have a diminishing returns. if you just look at these countries from before, and no relation. if i showed you have been his 70's similar with big gains been petering out. that is because having moller when you don't have the basic necessities of life is important.

it makes less and less difference for the measures of life for human beings parker you know, if you look at the measures of well-being over time in a country may be average levels double or triple imagine a flat line. we are the first generation to get to what economic growth can do for us. that is a really important point* to understand. after hundreds of years the best way to raise the quality of life is to raise material living standards. particularly when we understand the environmental damage. of course, we all want more money. but that has to do with status competition. economic growth is a zero sum game and the rich

developed world. at any rate, kate and i will talk about inequality. we don't use any hypothetical data but simply looking at levels of the differences of the quality. the measure reuse is how much richer the top 20% compared to the poorest 20%. you can see in the most people countries, four times as rich's the scale of the income gap with top 20% in each of the country's. austria, u.k. pm portugal eight and a half times as rich. we are twice as unequal. other countries is very similar but that is an important difference and we

will show it makes an astonishing difference with social problems. increasingly we're worried about the contrast between the material success of our societies and the social failings this is an illustration of how the media constantly preoccupied with the by linds for drugs or teenage birth or prisoner crowding, all of that how it come up over time. we collect data on some of those problems with life expectancy in each country. math and literacy scorers allow you to compare how they were doing in different countries. and the mortality rates, homicide, teen-age birthweights and how much they contrast, of this city

city -- obesity and mental illness including drug and alcohol addiction and social mobility of people moving up and down the social hierarchy. we put them into an index of social problems. it is like all those health and social problems weighted equally. where our country is the average physician on all of these things. marred by social mobility. see how that index is related to income inequality and that measure i just showed you. the right-hand side of the more equal countries usa, portugal, britain and australia, during much worse with all the problems and on

the more equal and you have the nordic countries and japan with a greedy and right across them. if you put the same index up the side per person, no relationship. you might think that is a suggestion of a downward -- downward slope but remember the u.s.a. is up there there is no relationship between the two. so all of those problems are common in the poorest areas of society it does not make any difference if you're richer together with more economic growth. the people would dismiss this as a freak of international differences and culture so it look at it amongst the 50 states and the u.s.a.. relationships international

also in a different city and here is the same index as we could get almost the same measures in relation of them come and in the quality of the 50 states. it could be dismissed as does chance. look at all of these social problems and show you the data up. of the picture is very substantially the same in both of those different settings. we're also worry people might think we have chosen problems to suit our argument so we also look to unicef the importance of that is that other people made up the index with 40 different components of child well-being go into the unicef index whether they can talk to their

parents, books at home, bullying at school, immunization rates, everything goes into it. if you look at it in relation to inequality, you find the clear relationships again. a very strong tendency, you do exactly what we would withdraw level of any quality. once more, that same index with her person the child well-being their, absolutely no relationship. all that data shows it says no longer the whole society is getting richer. what matters is how far behind us children are or

the poor are but the gaps between us and the distance up and down the social hierarchy that matters. now i will handed over to kate that will talk about the individual relationships but i go come back later. >> good evening. it is special to be here on this particular day and always nice to come back to the states provide live tears 16 years provide found a great wealth i a will have a slide after slide after slide even though the united states is doing badly i'll take you to the individual components mostly to show you the scale of the problem. i will start with levels of trusts.

the data come from the world values survey and show the proportion of population that most people can be trusted. can do think other people should be with two-thirds of the population that feel that others can be trusted portugal, singapore, occasio nally we have data and it is less than one-fifth of the population that feel they can be trusted. here is the same pattern from the united states at asks exactly the same question of random samples do think most other people can be trusted or not? in an equal state

wisconsin, wyoming, about two-thirds of the population thinking it can be trusted and it is down about 1/3 in but an equal states. what does that mean to be living in those different societies? what does that mean to live in a society where the bat test majority trust one another in other than feeling a minority? what is it like as a woman to walk home alone or encounter strangers on the street? what are things like at work and day to day life? his mental illness, coming from the world health organization sets up a consortium specially for these mental illness of different countries. at the equal end, less than 10% of the population, the

adult population asset has some type of mental illness the past 12 months than that the an equal the kind is ulster elliott and yuki -- uk 23% with the top at 26% so greater than one data for. it is important because they tell us what is going on is not confined to the minority of the population or sub population group. it is so big it must be affecting a very large portion of our society. moving on to health they are mortality rates these-- coming from colleagues in canada comparing the red dots of the canadian provinces.

this is a more equal and. into can see a strong correlation between inequality and mortality rates. there are about 200 studies and it is clear it is a robust relationship van day recent relationship had 60 million individuals who with the quality of life expectancy and self rated health. here is my lance. these come from colleagues in canada and they are comparing the u.s. and canadian provinces again where we have homicides per million people. canadian provinces are triangles i am not sure if you can tell. down here and the most equal

of the canadian provinces, there are 15 murders her million people per year. in the unequal states it is 150. that is a huge difference strongly correlated. four different countries age 15 and 19 and the more equal countries a more equal but then the u.s.a. is up there. and the data it is rather crude, they mask the more complexity and the start distances between the society's because these young women in japan having babies as teenagers 80% are married and having their babies in that context in

the uk and usa. drug use and the united nations we have combined opiates, a can of this ecstasy and hide drug use in the more unequal countries and significantly less use in the more equal society. here are rates of imprisonment. looking at the health of problems the relationship is so tight. of you know, a country equality you can accurately predict the rate of imprisonment. this has a slightly different scale than any other we have shown you. appear presenters her 100,000 people.

that means the difference between 10 and 100 is the same distance between 100 and 1,000. we have to do that to fit on the usa otherwise he would be somewhere up there on the ceiling with the line curving up so high. the other one that does not quite fit this increase which has a much lower level than you would expect and that would be a bit lower because two of them escaped recently. they escaped rather dramatically a helicopter landed in the present the ground and two people got in and flew away. it was a big story not because how they escaped but it was the second time they had done it, by helicopter. [laughter] it is important to tell you it is not correlate with rates of crime. we're seeing a tendency for

more unequal societies to have are sure systems of justice system as it. when you come into the criminal justice system you're more likely to be sent to prison and more likely to be sent there for much longer. and president rates for the u.s. though some blue have abolished the death penalty and those in red have retained it. you can see a higher rate for those who have abolished it, 200 prisoners her 100,000 in the equal states than the other states. criminologists have assessed one-third of imprisonment rates due to changes in the crime rate. the remaining 70% of the imprisonment rate is from sending people to present for longer and 10 california

over 300 people in prison for life for shoplifting. in the uk we send mostly women to prison for shoplifting every day. here is conflict among children. the levels of violence i showed you were restricted to adults. here we have taken data from the world health organization and combined the aggression towards somebody else. and the proportion that do not find the appears helpful. it is a measure of conflict with school-age children much lower the more equal end with conflict and the u.k. and again during the measure of child well-being. leakage ehud data from different countries and

difference-- but here we show you the percentage of kids who drop out of high school. it is 10 or 15% on the equal end and more than one quarter and a more unequal states. a strong correlation with state levels of any quality. his social mobility, putting together at the london school of economics it is a measure of a correlation between a father when his son is born and the sons and come 30 years later and asks the question too rich dads have rich sons' and poured dads have four sons or is that injured generational and come mobility? at this end that correlation between the father and the sun is low. and norway, sweden canada

and germany scoring higher on social mobility but the u.k. bad day but usa right at the bottom. so having made the point* that inequality is related to a whole range of problems and we show many more in the book then we have today, we want to make the point* of any quality of facts all of us and there are benefits better largest up the bottom of society and extend the elbow way up. that now people at different social economic positions looking at british e epidemiologists published comparing the health of white men in england to

white men in the u.s.a.. the pale blue buyers are englishmen in the dark ones are the american men and the gap the prevalent comment diabetes, hypertension, a cancer, lung disease and heart disease. here are the lowest educated men come in little educated and highest. you can see the social gradient except for cancer within the most educated men in every case and you can see in every comparison and dead top third that the more equal have the worst health and men in the u.k.. looking at death rates rates, about 3,000 counties

counties, with the counties of the less equal states are arranged by county level and comes and affluence. in the four counties it makes of big difference to county death rates to be in a more equal state but at every level of county and town there is an advantage to living in a more equal states even in the very affluent counties it is better to live in a more equal state. here is some data going to educational achievements stated it from a colleague and canada comparing young adults by years of education their parents have had record down at this end is the school with the kids with the least educated

parents, sweden, canada coming about the middle distribution and the u.s.a.. makes a big difference of those of the least educated parents in a more equal country but that extends all the way up and to the children with the highest levels of education. you will not get richer or more educated by the being in a more equal country but you will benefit at any level from living in a society with greater equality. because of any quality stretches out the social hierarchy and makes money more important, and more unequal country's people are working longer hours. material things are more important to express status so you work harder.

here is the data from two economist and you are actually working nine full weeks longer per year than those in a book entries. just think of the things you can do with an extra nine weeks every year. i will come back to richard and he will talk about the possible alternative explanations for what we are showing you. >> i do think it is important that you should not think of in quotation khamenei quality a superficial but more of a framework of scaffold with which all of the social status of differentiation take place. his luxury fever or the sociologists, they make it very clear how people using their money with

differentiation you know, the design stage designer labels and the handbags and why it is important. thinking very fundamentally about status differentiation and how it is powered by these material differences. still think of money and a status as a separate thing. they are about the same thing and a command -- between animal hierarchies and the ranking systems you knew you will see status power and how it all goes together that is because they do the damage. coming back to this graph which i showed you earlier all the problems kate has been talking about put into the index. two points, one that you have noticed if you look at

the others it is always the same countries that do badly. usa is that the top then britain and portugal and so on. always the same ones that do well. so what we are looking at is a general social dysfunction not saying simply fed health care is worse but we're showing where one problem is worse you'll also find more people locked up in prison where more teenage births. there is a tendency for the problems to move together. you need a very fundamental explanation of why those should move together. the other real important is to think if there are other explanations.

look up the line up of countries and think our reach right to exercise in the quality like this? remember, it is not just among these countries but 50 states and mentioning there happen 200 or what happened to the eastern european countries during fed transition. sorry. something is going on. is it still on? guess. sell some people raise it is culture, not in a quality. they usually suggests that the floor they look but that to is speaking in cultures that do badly.

the u.k. and even australia but you don't have to argue about it but you have to cut them off and still see it as a highly significant relationship even without them. in the den some of the outcomes it does seem to explain why some do worse than the others. they suggested the nordic countries, they are not like the rest of us. the same applies, you can cut them off and do still have a significant relationship that and. thinking of cultural similarities and differences, picking out to pass, one is portugal, and spain is down there to the middle. they share a very similar culture and it bald head dictatorships until the '70s then get now they do suffer

differently and the rates of social problems closely predicted by equality. they both do well in extraordinary different ways they do well over others think the position of women and japan and the secretive then near gender equality equality, japan very much is the reverse. how they get that is contrasting in sweden they have a big difference in earnings and redistribute in the welfare state and in japan there are smaller differences in earnings and much less redistribution with government social

expenditure but looking for at contrast in the american states, whether or not they live free or die they have the lowest taxation committee state except alaska. and the neighbor is contrasting with higher social expenditure. it does not matter how you get your great day quality as long as you get it somehow. of a few other suggested explanation sometimes people say we have a whole relationship the wrong way around. if you try to use that explanation is you find what it is that is moving those

different problems together. why are they consistently worse for others? what is the underlying cause that means a country tends to do well or badly on most of them? so to explain this relationship in so many settings it also explains why the quality moves with those other things. with child outcomes it is hard to see how child of coombs would effected a quality. with a new political ideology, within a period of reagan, and we've had year liberal economics and so on to trade them bell law with

the changes in taxes with the rising inequality of that point*. but those political leaders never intended to increase obesity or drug problems or teenage birth. that was the unintended consequences of what they did. i accept the new politics can lead to wider income differences or a narrowing of differences but what follows from that is the social consequences we have been pointing out. one thing people raise is immigration as a cause of this. kate has already showed you and the contrast between the u.k. and rates of illness, showing diabetes and heart disease and so

on, that is all amongst the white population. the things she has been showing you the difference is so large they cannot possibly be explained to the 10 or 15% of the society parker you cannot explain and outcomes they don't seem to suffer the social consequences of low education and low income. not so far off with the hispanic rights they seem to have about the same foreign-born minority as speaking but yet they are on top of the last point* i make is that there with the us small that do well portugal is up there.

if you waited data by the population size, the correlations go up because usa is the biggest country there and the next biggest is japan. you have small countries and large countries that both hands. nobody has yet suggested an explanation that cannot be dismissed. this is what has been happening to and come distribution in the u.s.a. since 1975. that steep rise during the '80s up until the early 90's then it was level since then could data if finishes 2005. when we have had a similar rise in inequality people can in the talked -- detect

when it becomes more antisocial. if you want more of this you can get it from our book. each chapter deals with the different problems the different data and goes to the kinds of explanations through that particular outcome. it is basically what we said plus some scions you can download. however i think the take-home message is that we must up thinking of raising the quality on the consumer is them and realize a instead that what would really make a difference to the quality of our life is what affects the social environment and relationships between us and

to recognize there is no really strong evidence to improve the well-being of a society. by narrowing the differences between us. i will stop there. [applause] >> i will invite you to come up if you have questions that this microphone here. i will say i now understand why growing up in new hampshire was such a good thing. did not realize it was such an equal state but i think we should change the slogan from live free or die but with equal or die. we should start over here. come speak at this microphone.

>> i did read the book last week and my question is that if a politician in the united states raises these issues they are accused of class warfare or accused of dividing to bring us together but in addition what could result in a real conversation about any quality of 82 policies with any quality? >> i think we would start by saying or by showing a whole range of evidence that is a powerful place to start. you can discuss from the evidence rather than the ideological point* of view to see the damage done. i want to point* out that you as americans are among the more equal of the

developed countries for a large part of the 20th century was much higher levels of inequality, and a ranking was much better in relation to the world and of course, your country was founded on the principles of equality and democracies of the fact this is the entrenched peculiar american problem that cannot be fixed you have the history of egalitarianism and founded principles. it is not about class war but returning to your roots. if you favor more equality then you need to take back that language of what it is truly to be american and what the country's aims and goals of the society should be. >> i think the relationship is the other way around. by having bigger and tom differences paul krugman in

his book shows how income the quality, between democrats with a big overlap with cross party voting but within a quality no overlap battle. it really does affect the political process. but what we had to do do is realize how it fits 102 rein in carbon emissions and the greatest threat to to environmental policies driven by status competition and amplified by inequality that is what makes the struggle to keep up with each other. and instead of being depressed societies we

should be able to paint a picture to improve the real quality of life for us and solve environmental problems. we're consuming about three times as much as we need for instance if we needed to maintain the current levels of life expectancy on a given technology. that is about one-third of levels of consumption and curb emissions. even on existing technology. we can improve the social quality by moving in that direction. appealing on behalf of the poor minority, this is about the well-being of all of us together. >> i am just curious as if

you would think about the gap. [inaudible] >> levels of current inequality we're not showing any time except the last slide ratio in the u.s. things have been at a high level of inequality for a while with the same as true as britain. in deed one or two became more equal in the same point*. it is hard to predict what will happen. i do think at the moment with that economic recession and the credit crunch, a top salaries and bonuses, there is now a public discourse that there was not before. trying to be optimistic, we

now have the evidence and we need to create a social movement and i hope we will see that close but i have no evidence to see that it is about to so. >> this is extraordinary eyeopener to see in such stark terms. two questions. first about consumers, i am curious, as we build the social movement on inequality and equality, is there any anywhere recede greater equality at of a reduction rather than an increase from the bottom? secondly, the question of war and militarism a few job about portugal i did not know why it is in there, and looks like you really have

the most militarily aggressive countries that match the most unequal and the white colonial countries as opposed, not necessarily too military spending, japan has a huge amount but it does not use that military spending around the world. is that something that matches as well, not instead of but the inequality gap? thank you. >> i suppose japan is an example of a country where top income, i think japanese directives were quite broad they did not pay themselves as much and the differences have been widening but in the past sometimes they did not pay themselves and that was partly that they provided more people from

within the company who have loyalties to other people so it became a bit more embarrassing to lay off employees while giving yourself these huge bonuses. also occasionally moving across that was a possibility but also representatives on the board. we think we need to develop all forms of workplace of economic democracy as ways of really embedding a quality in our society and giving some of democratic control to the scale of the inconsistencies. you think your boss may need to get three times as much you're 10 times as much but not three or 400 times. it is simply a reflection of the complete lack of any kind of democratic control court even made up by having other representatives of the board.

we should try to promote neutrals and cooperatives and friendly societies or whatever we can and to change the structure of the workplace. and a question about militarism. >> aspect of it is the time we don't have time to show you more. more equal countries, or better on the global piece index and you are right some are among the more aggressive. that doesn't explain the relationship between the health and social problems we are looking at. but remember what i showed you contrast it does seem that more equal societies are more socially cohesive, public spirited spirited, act for the common good with the society or others. but they find a more equal societies donate a higher

proportion of foreign aid and recycle more of their waste and even business leaders and more equal countries feel they should comply with international agreements. along with the peace index, there is a clear indication of people looking out for themselves a more equal countries and maybe that is reflected in the aggression. >> if you grow up than a dog eat dog society, then that becomes your model of human nature and 90 think it is always on sticks and carrots. it makes a fundamental shift of what it means to be human nature in this society. >> focusing on the policy implications to create ideas

ever more equal basically with the income it is quantitative. [inaudible] my question in the first it seems to be at the end and i have not read the book but do you find a similar not just relationships but if the rats? the second thing is do you think if they had done better the think it could increase the quality and in

five years you would see the outcomes? >> it is clear that countries can change a shift in levels of the equality and health and social problems and you ask could we see a change in the next few years and how do we achieve that change? we're not propose saying one particular policy or strategy because it does seem e quality is beneficial. we think even for the smoothest changes can help. for instance we just had a 5% rise in the top tax rate that has not been particularly controversial so change can happen. i will have rich talk about

the longitudinal study. >> there are some that changeover time some of them are not very convincing. three or four of them are. one or two are pretty convincing. but there are 200 study is looking at income inequality in relation to health with different settings and time periods. they're not all cross sectional but even if they were common because of income distribution changes unless they move together together, for instance it is affected by early childhood and a lifetime of different levels of equality and positions of the social hierarchy and probably every course of debt has a different thing point*.

he will find when there is higher unemployment and low wages that violence will rise among young men pretty quickly but you know, also the children who are subjected to violence are apt to become more violent adults. that shows a little bit of the problem but lastly there has not been a lot of data to compare countries over a long period of time that we could do that very soon. >> in this first round we have time for one more question. >> with regard to the military is of of view when asked do you think he would win? the unequal states the

others thought they would win a fist fight which shows a great lovell of aggression to compare different countries. but my question has to do with sweden. as they understand it, there was any quality and then there was a recognition of the unsustainable policies would change to show great equality with all of the social factors. i don't know a great deal about it and i hope you can enlighten us if you know, more about it. >> i believe there were a lot of labor disputes some time between the wars in the first half of the century particularly strikes among workers and the troops were

on it strikers not long after that and remained in power for a very long point* but the prime minister and his chancellor expressed the policy about making sweden a classless society what they call the people's home with primary school children were taught that all the way through with the sweden's ability in the '80s said what they were taught, it was a society and the people's home. you need decades to make the major difference is. but countries have done it. >> with eight money quote election of the right-wing government since we did in december there is a sense of public distrust that the

direction society was taking. the three main opposition parties have formed an alliance to the next election so perhaps the pendulum will shift to the other way again. they have another election in the spring. >> i want to thank our two authors kate pickett and richard wilkinson authors of "the spirit level" if you want to get involved with more work for equality they call a social movement, there are many ways you can do this at the institute for policy studies we have a program on in the quality of the common good it is helping to bring forward new work like this but also hoping to steer people toward campaigns that call-up the bottom and there will be many this year from

the employee fried choice act and the anti-poverty program also to pull down the top there will be initiatives by many groups to pull down the tops to raise the rat days taxes on the very rich and a series of measures around executive pay. by a encourage you to join us. i encourage you all to buy this new book, it "the spirit level." thank you all for coming. [applause] richard wilkinson is professor emeritus at the university of nottingham medical school.