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发帖数: 22013 | 1 发信人: NORI (Two Steps from Hell), 信区: Reader
标 题: 平等社会让每个人都收益
发信站: 水木社区 (Sat Aug 6 07:19:43 2011), 站内
Richard Wilkinson和Kate Pickett是近两年来最引人注目的一对夫妻，让他们名扬天下
的就是这本书：The Spirit Level: why equality is better for everyone。
两位作者认为，近年来各地学者所做的居民收入、福利、健康寿命和其它种种社会问题的
比较研究(包括国家之间、以及美国各州之间)，提供了相当多的数 据，是时候进行综合
分析，来论证人民在收入(这是目前唯一可靠的衡量社会是否平等的指标)上的平等程度，
对于社会个阶层的健康、人均寿命、犯罪与社会问题 产生的影响。在本书的第二部份
中，作者分别对社区关系、身体健康、心理健康、肥胖症、教育水平、少女怀孕、暴力、
监狱、社会升迁机会(social mobility)等9个方面，论证了为什么平等社会做得更好。
这本书所论证的关键一点，在平装本的书名副题中点出：社会平等对“每个人”都有好
处。一个平等社会并不是通过减少社会底层的人数比例来达到总体幸福程度的提升，书中
在比较美国、英国、瑞典等国的疾病率、成人死亡率和婴儿死亡率等指标时，发现 在收
入较为平等的瑞典，这些指标在从高到低的收入档次都比英国为低。这说明在一个更为平
等的社会，收入高的阶层也能获益，也就是说，让社会更为平等，并不 只有利于“穷
人”，收入属于中高层的中产阶级同样能从中得到好处。
当然所有人都愿意生活在一个公平程度和生活质量较高的社会，但是为了达成平等社会的
努力，却面临着种种阻力。从东西方冷战开始，个人自由与社会平等 之间不可调和，似
乎已成共识，许多决策者已经对“整个社会可以更平等”失去了信心。以13年的工党执政
时期为例，作者指出，虽然政府在帮助社会底层人士上 花费了大量资源，但却不是去解
决社会不平等的问题，而是试图打破社会不平等与社会问题之间的关联——在两位作者眼
中，这一关联是无法打破的。
附录是社会学教授Gary Craig的书评：
This is an important book with an extraordinarily important message,
conveyed
by its title. The book has clearly resonated with politicians, policy-makers,
academics, researchers and many others: the authors have achieved something
like superstar status, and not just within the narrow confines of the social
policy world, embarking on what might be regarded as the equivalent of a
world tour in the past year or so, speaking to the media, at conferences and
seminars on literally hundreds of occasions.
Given that the issue of equality is so important to so many, the question
about this phenomenon is less about ‘why?’ than about ‘why now?’ I
recall
Wilkinson’s first forays into this area of debate in the mid- to late 1980s.
The New Zealand government, having embraced Thatcherite politics and
economics, had created the most unequal society within the OECD family of
countries and one corollary of this was that it had increasing health
inequalities and, for example, the highest suicide rate in the OECD.
Wilkinson, rather more tentatively then, had suggested that the two trends
were linked. Politicians nodded ? and moved on. Now, 25 years later, the
same
message, albeit supported by a much more wide-ranging and robust body of
evidence, has created a substantial political stir. I asked Wilkinson at a
recent public presentation why he thought it had done so: but he was also at
a loss to know why.
Of course it remains to be seen as to whether it makes a difference in
political terms. New Labour came to power in the UK in 1997 promising to
deal
with the deeply unfair society which was the legacy of 18 years of Tory rule.
For the first few years, it looked as if their policies on child poverty and
manipulating the tax system was having an impact. However, this was a false
dawn. Certainly hundreds of thousands of children have been lifted over the
poverty threshold, but these were the easy ones, being just below the
poverty
line; and that line was itself set at a scandalously low level as endless
research since the days of Rowntree has shown. Meanwhile, top incomes and
wealth were left unattended and, as the recent report of the National
Equality Panel, commissioned by Harriet Harman and chaired by John Hills,
has
shown,broadly we are back where we were in the late 1990s with disgracefully
high levels of inequality, not just in terms of income but in terms of
outcomes for every area of public welfare.
Despite what we now know about what the banks and other financial services
have done, Goldman Sachs can announce that in the first quarter of 2010 the
average bonus paid to their employees was more than ￡1,000,000 ? and that
was the average! Goodness knows what the highest paid in the company were
getting ? but the announcement passed with barely a political murmur. The
best the Tory party can do is to suggest that top salaries in the public
sector should be capped at 20 times the average salary of employees ? which
would affect a handful of people ? whilst it is silent on the private sector,
which, of course, is where the real problem lies. The Labour mantra
continues
to be about economic growth and that misses the point too, because the issue
is not about everyone getting relatively richer but about the differences
between rich and poor.
Perhaps this climate has generated the interest in the book, but only time
will tell whether its message has any real long-lasting political purchase.
So what is the message?
Wilkinson and Pickett review at length the international evidence for a wide
range of social issues ? mental health, drug use, physical health and life
expectancy, obesity, educational performance, teenage births, violence,
imprisonment and social mobility ? to demonstrate that the growing wealth of
countries does not in itself tackle what most countries still recognise as
serious social ills. What is required is a concerted attack on inequality in
all its forms. The authors do not argue that, historically, there has not
been a trend towards equality ? they cite the abolition of slavery, the
extension of the franchise, the abolition of capital and corporal punishment,
and demands for greater equality of opportunity as evidence of this trend
over the past centuries ? but that, within societies, those which still have
substantial differences in income and wealth, most of all, will be those
afflicted with the manifestations of unhappiness, depression, ill-health,
high levels of obesity (ironically more so amongst the poorer than the
richer) and so on. And this is as true at the level of the state as it is at
an individual level. Wilkinson and Pickett show, for example, that the most
unequal societies are those that are most belligerent on an international
stage.
The gains of having more equal societies are enormous. Anyone who has
studied
comparative social policy will know that the more egalitarian societies such
as the Scandinavian block are those, despite relatively high levels of
taxation, which “live well, with high living standards and much better
social environments”. And “if the United States was to reduce its income
inequality to something like the average of the four most equal societies
(Japan, Norway, Sweden and Finland), the proportion of the population
feeling
they could trust others might rise by 75% with matching improvements in ...
the quality of community life”, and with correspondingly huge reductions in
rates of mental illness, obesity, imprisonment, teenage births and premature
deaths. The same outcomes would apply to the UK which is now one of the most
unequal OECD countries.
To reach this goal requires, the authors argue, the creation of a sustained
movement based, most of all, on widespread public understanding (and they
offer some suggestions for how this should be done, including the
establishment of a Foundation for promoting their ideas about equality).
This
movement goes way beyond those in formal political power, but it has to
bring
its pressure to bear on those in power. It would require a political
manifesto which goes well beyond any on offer at the recent General Election
with a preparedness to face down the arguments, for example, that much
higher
? and redistributive - taxation would lead to capital flight. There are no
political parties currently on offer which would adopt this programme: but,
perhaps, armed with the overwhelming evidence in this book, we can not only
hope that one might emerge but join that movement to make it do so.
?? Correspondence Address: Professor Gary Craig Department of Applied Social
Studies, University of Durham, 32 Old Elvet, Durham DH1 1NE. |
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