27th January 2010
Lancaster Environment Centre and
Royal Geographical Society Seminar
University of Lancaster
Why social inequality persists
Danny Dorling
University of Sheffield
Based on the book: “Injustice: why social inequality persists”,
to be published by Policy Press in April 2010. www.shef.ac.uk/sasi
Of all the 25 richest countries in the world, the US and UK rank as 2nd and 4th most unequal
respectively when the annual income of the best-off tenth of their population is compared
that of the poorest tenth. In descending order of inequality the 10%:10% income ratios are:
17.7 Singapore, 15.9 United States, 15.0 Portugal, 13.8 United Kingdom, 13.4 Israel, 12.5
Australia, 12.5 New Zealand, 11.6 Italy, 10.3 Spain, 10.2 Greece, 9.4 Canada, 9.4 Ireland, 9.2
Netherlands, 9.1 France, 9.0 Switzerland, 8.2 Belgium, 8.1 Denmark, 7.8 Korea (Republic of),
7.3 Slovenia, 6.9 Austria, 6.9 Germany, 6.2 Sweden, 6.1 Norway, 5.6 Finland, and 4.5 Japan.
The five new tenets of injustice
1.Elitism is efficient;
2. Exclusion is necessary;
3. Prejudice is natural;
In what are now the most unequal of the world’s twenty five richest countries people have
come slowly to accept different 4.
ways
of thinking.
Different presumptions about others.
Greed
is good;
Different to those held in the more equitable and average countries. New beliefs have
local flavour and antecedents.
Britain, as the
five social evils identified by Beveridge at
5. InDespair
is inevitable.
the dawn of the British welfare state are gradually being eradicated (ignorance, want,
idleness, squalor and disease), they are being replaced by five new tenets of injustice.
Extent of education in Britain 1880-2013
Who we think it is fitting to educate changes over time. When Nelson Mandela was put on
trial in 1963 he faced a possible death sentence. In his concluding court statement he
defined, as an equality worth fighting for, the right of children to be treated equally in
education and for them to be taught that Africans and Europeans were equal and
merited equal attention. At that time the South African government spent twelve times as
much on educating each European child as on each African child. Lifetime ratios
between the extremes in Britain are not dissimilar.
Children by ‘ability’, the Netherlands 2006
International tests are used today to label children by supposed ‘ability’. The above graph
is derived from the OECD (2007). ‘None’ implies possessing no knowledge as far as can be
measured. ‘Limited’ implies possessing very limited knowledge. ‘Barely’ stands for barely
possessing adequate knowledge in the minds of the assessors. ‘Simple’ means
understanding only simple concepts. ‘Effective’ is a little less damning. ‘Developed’ is
better again; but only ‘Advanced’ pupils are found to be capable, it is said, of the kind of
thinking that might include ‘critical insight’.
Children by ‘ability’, the elitist model
Almost no matter how the students had ‘performed’ in the OECD tests, the curves drawn
above from the results of those tests would have been bell shaped. When calibrating the
results (adjusting the scores before release), it was “…assumed that students have been
sampled from a multivariate normal distribution”. OECD (2009, page 145). These
educational economists decided upon the ability distribution of children before they
began testing them. If you do that, then, even in the Netherlands, every seventh child is, at
best, “limited”.
Nobel Prizes illustrate bias (1901-2008)
Until 2009 only around one in twenty top prices were awarded to women. Testing humans is
almost always to an extent disingenuous. To win a Nobel Prize the key requirements were
first to be alive in the right century and then to be of the right sex. Even male mainstream
economists know that Albert Einstein, Alan Turing and James Watson were just the inventors
of “…discoveries about to happen. If these particular individuals had not found them,
others would have made these discoveries instead.”. : Kay, J. (2004, page 258).
Nobel Prizes to women 1901-2008, & 2009
In 2009 one glass ceiling was shattered. Over a third of Nobel prizes were awarded to
women when usually a twentieth had been. On Monday October the 5th 2009 Elizabeth
Blackburn, Carol Greider and Jack Szostak jointly shared the award in medicine. On
Tuesday October the 6th the Physics prize when to Charles Kao, Willard Boyle and George
Smith. And on Wednesday October the 7th the Chemistry prize went to Venkatraman
Ramakrishnan, Thomas Steitz and Ada Yonath. A third of the prize winners by the third day
were women. Herta Müller was awarded the prize in literature on October 8th, yet another,
Elinor Ostrom, shared the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economics that was awarded on
October 12th and was a huge surprise. No woman had been awarded that prize before.
The unsurprising and predicable award was to President Obama, in hope of peace. History
provides the measure of what there is to be overcome.
Elitism being efficient is suggested by
Economic models designed to find that:
“…the costs of trying to increase educational
attainment by a general rise in school expenditure far
exceed the economic benefits.”
This is ‘found’ in Denmark because
In full this elitist (but sadly economically conventional claim reads): “This simple calculation
shows that
the estimated
effect
school expenditure
on educational
attainment
“…the
returns
toofeducation
in Denmark
are
low is very
small, and it indicates that the costs of trying to increase educational attainment by a
compared
to, forfarexample,
the US benefits.
or theThis
UK,
general rise
in school expenditure
exceed the economic
is especially so
since thebecause
returns to education
in Denmark
are low compared
to, for
example, the US or the
of a very
compressed
wage
structure.”
UK, because of a very compressed wage structure.” Heinesen, E. and B. K. Graverseny
(2005, page 126).
!
Elitism is efficient if you believe in a
deity who discriminates at birth:
“…with ‘the young’ we should ... push them … until
the young children … get the chance to make the
most of their God given potential.”
(Tony Blair, 2005).
The same is true if your personal religion is
the kind of science that invokes the fictional
If you
believe
that GodA
or more
Genes gives
differing children differing
positions
at the that
starting
“IQ
gene”.
convincing
science
finds
posts of education; then education, education, education is not about equality,
opportunity
or outcome.
It is about realising
that which
is largely
pre-ordained
‘the
we are
born “plastic”.
We
inherit
the
ability by
not
Lord’. See Ball, S. J. (2008, page 12 for Tony Blair’s words in full). Our genes (or the gods if
to
you
like)inherit
endow us ability.
with what is called ‘plasticity’ at birth. We inherit the ability not to inherit
ability.
The Brown eyed / Blue eyed test is key:
Treat children differently in class by
the colour of their eyes and watch:
There is striking evidence that performance and
behaviour in an educational task can be profoundly
affected by the way we feel we are seen and
judged by others. When “… we expect to be viewed
as inferior, our abilities seem to be reduced.” That is
See Wilkinson, R. and K. Pickett (2009, chapter 8), the work of James Flynn, and the studies
enough toboys
explain
away
the results
theCombined,
studiesthese
of
of how Afro-Caribbean
were treated
in schools
in 1968 inof
Britain.
explain later
measured differences
in test twins.
‘performance’. They do so far better than the
separated
‘identical’
‘general factor’ determining your so called intelligence what eugenists called inherited
intelligence or “..the non-committal symbol of ‘g.’” Wells, H. G., J. Huxley and G. P. Wells
(1931, page 822, quoting Prof. Charles Spearman).
Inequality clouds judgement
Elitist thinking not only determines children’s life
chances but also has an effect on everything
that is seen as decent or acceptable in a
society. Where elitist thinking was allowed to
grow most strongly, social exclusion became
more widespread again. In the UK we tolerate
older adult benefits of only £9 a day to live on:
exclusion
from
society.
Social exclusion
is the new
image
of injusticePauperization.
that grew out of the old face, out of general
eradication of the bulk of an old social evil, ‘want’; going hungry, wanting for clothes and
other basic possessions, warmth and other essentials. But to go back to see the origins of
the idea that the poor will always be with us unless ‘we’ control ‘their’ behaviour, look back
to the world’s first ever geographical example of a graph used to suggest in-breeding of
“the unfit”.
Geographical distribution of paupers,
England and Wales, 1891, by Karl Pearson
There is a long history to suggesting that geographical concentrations of paupers imply
exclusion is ‘naturally’ distributed. The figure above is redrawn from the original (Pearson
1895, Figure 17, plate 13). On the X axis: paupers per ten thousand people; Y axis:
frequency of unions reporting each rate. Given what we now know – the graph suggests
that despite the structures of the poor laws paupers did move out of poorer areas, but new
paupers were constantly being created. Migration, not “in-breeding” segregated rich and
poor over time.
What it means to be poor changes:
Households - poor by different measures
If a family is poor by two out of three ways of measuring poverty you can be sure they are
badly off. One sixth of households in Britain are this poor. Those who are subjectively poor
describe themselves as poor. Those who are necessities poor do not have access to the
goods or services deemed necessary to be included in the normal life of society. Low
income is the way poverty remains officially measured in the UK (source Bradshaw and
Finch, 2003).
Households cycle into and above poverty:
People get into debt to avoid their standard of living falling immediately when their
incomes fall. Above, the X axis measures income poverty. The Y axis measures adequacy
of material goods (necessities). Households tend to circulate anti-clockwise. Source: David
Gordon, Townsend Centre for International Poverty Research, University of Bristol
(http://www.bris.ac.uk/poverty/). Social mobility is lowest where the lengths of these axes
are longest.
Sustaining postwar growth in rich nations after
the 70s would have required another planet
growth
Poverty as measuredDecadal
through low income
or by otherwise being excluded from the
spending norms of society
rose(in
in Britain
and America in the 1970s as the rich sought to
rates
GDP)
maintain high growth in their wealth despite the worldwide slump. The poorest continent
and poorer people in richer continents suffered most from the slump: ‘Real growth’ per
decade in GDP (%) per person by continent 1955-2001 (drawn above) shows the widening
gap. Source: Estimates by Angus Maddison, from versions provided in spreadsheets given
in www.worldmapper.org.
The global bell-curve is of income distribution:
The curve only looks ‘normal’ when money is valued multiplicatively (hence the log X axis).
The affluent in rich countries excluding themselves from social norms results in ever greater
consumption by smaller groups in the rich world that, in turn, causes want to rise elsewhere.
It regenerates the old evil of the most basic of wants rises as peasants are made into
paupers in the poorest of countries. “Pauperization is now clearly seen by many to be the
direct end result of massive economic polarization on a world scale” (Amin, S., 2004).
If unchecked,
unjust belief builds on unjust belief:
1. “elitism is efficient”…
2. “exclusion is necessary”…
3. “prejudice is natural”
But remember:
Unlike
other
species
human
infants
have very
few
of
Humans as
they grow
are able
(and have)
to adapt
to the conditions
they find
themselves
born into. Those human beings born with fixed inherent traits would have been less likely to
their neural pathways already committed at birth.
survive through the rapidly changing environments that they found themselves in over the
arehistory.
bornPrejudice
helpless.
course ofWe
(human)
is not ‘natural’. We evolved to become more flexible.
That evolution means we now inherit the ability not to inherit particular abilities. But,
simultaneously, none of us are that able. Almost all of us find memorizing 5 digit numbers
difficult. Those who don’t usually find much else difficult. Idiosyncracies that others tend to
be better at. It is only by working in concert that we do well.
How are you finding ‘things’?
How’s life in
the UK?
Households’ ability to get by on their income in Britain, 1984-2004. Source: Derived from
(ONS, Social Trends, 2006, table 5.15, page 78, mean of 1984, 1994, and 2004 surveys).
Finding ‘it difficult
to manage’ is a very British euphemism for not managing. Among those
Ask:
doing better than this, almost half the population in Britain describe themselves ‘as only just
coping’! So, how
did we get to this situation? A lack of political ambition as compared to
How
what politicians have achieved in the majority of affluent countries can be blamed. In
did we
gettrust others more, are less scared of their neighbours, share
most affluent countries
people
their resources out
more equitably and are less prejudiced in their opinions of others in their
to this?
country (Wilkinson and Pickett 2009).
Answer: Enough people voted for it –
in the right places at the right times
Conservative vote
concentration
1918-2005
Concentration of Conservative votes, general elections 1918-2005. This graph shows the
spatial segregation index for Britain. The index shows the minimum proportion of such voters
who would have to be transferred between a fixed set of parliamentary constituencies if
each constituency were to have the same national proportion of Conservative voters at
each general election. The geographical concentration reflects how people come less to
know, to share the views of, their neighbours in other areas. The ‘over-concentration’ of
votes since 1997 and not just their low numbers lost the Conservatives power from then until
at least 2005, but the influence of their concentrating ‘geographical block’ affected all
politics. Left wing politicians feared the right-wing “middle-Britain”.
Income inequality in Britain: the trend
What the richest
1% get
As a result of what first
became politically
possible and then,
apparently, politically
Share of all income received by the richest 1% in Britain
1918-2009. Lower
line is post-tax
impossible,
inequality
share. Source, Dorling 2010 updating and relying on Atkinson (2003) and Brewer, Sibieta et
fell and then rose
al. (2008). Recent bankers bonuses are not included above. If the full extent of the 2008
and 2009 bankers’ bonuses are added, inequality by 2010 would be seen to exceed the
1922 gilded-age maxima. Taxation of the bonuses in 2010 may, for the first time since the
1970s, see this rise in the exclusion of the very richest be curtailed. However, it is not just
bankers that constitute the most affluent single percentile of the population.
The most harmful cost of inequality:
Inequality in health –
premature mortality
In more unequal times, and in the aftermath of the shock of mass unemployment, more
people in poorer areas die young as compared to other times and places. The prospects
of the wealthy also move away from those of the average. The line marked by white
squares shows how much lower the age-sex standardized under age 65 mortality rate of
and worse
off average.
area - The line marked by dark
the best-off 10% by areaBest
is as compared
to the
diamonds shows how much
higher thatfrom
of theaverage
worst-off 30% is than the average. (Source
differences
Dorling and Thomas 2009, derived from Table 4.3 with interpolation between five year rates
in some circumstances).
If unchecked unjust belief builds on
unjust belief, upon unjust belief:
1. “elitism is efficient”…
2. “exclusion is necessary”…
3. “prejudice is natural”
4. Greed is good! (still!!)
It is still quietly being claimed that ultimately, “greed is good’” even by some of those who
reported from outside of collapsing banks. As the BBC correspondent Robert Preston wrote,
in 2008, in support still of the orthodox economic model, the mantra remains “greed is
good”: Preston, R. (2008, page 336). We sustain injustice while we still think that we have to
rely on the trickle-down attributed to the ‘wealth-generation’ that is assumed to be a byproduct of the greed of a few in the elite. This occurs while millions of others are excluded
from social norms and presumed to be unable to generate wealth themselves.
7% of single adults own 2 or more cars
We tolerate this:
It is unjust that in a country full of cars so many parents of the poorest young children have
to walk. There are clearly enough cars for every household that needs a car to have a car.
Around 7% of ‘spare’ cars are owned by single adults who cannot physically drive more
than one at a time. Children living with only one adult in their household are double in
absolute number, and many more time as likely to be living without a car than are children
living with two parents. It is much harder to live without a car if you have children and no
other adults to rely on. If you are able bodied and not caring for young children or others
who cannot walk far and you live in a city then in an equitable country public transport
works better than driving.
…because of greed
We racked up our debt because of greed
Debt in the
USA
Outstanding consumer debt as a proportion of disposable income, USA 1975-2005. The
debt was needed to “keep up with the Joneses” and to keep living away from those you
increasingly fear if you live in a more unequal affluent country. The bars show the ratio of
debt to annual disposable income with axis to the right. The line shows the percentage
change in that ratio over the coming five years (with axis to the left). Disposable income is
the income after paying taxes. Derived from: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve
System, Flows of Funds, Accounts of the United States, Historical Series and Annual Flows
and Outstandings, Fourth Quarter 2005 (Foster 2006).
We pollute the poor because of greed
Poverty rate by NOx emission and ambient air quality for 10,444 British wards in 1999. When
you drive a car (to let you live further from the poor but still get to work) it is not just you
who suffers inconvenience. It is people living in those parts of inner cities which are poorest,
where they are least likely to own cars, who breathe in the most air pollution from the
exhausts of the cars of those who drive past their homes (graph from Mitchell and Dorling
2003). Note: low emitting and polluting quintiles are labelled 1, the highest are labelled 5.
The proportion living in poverty is derived from breadline surveys.
We avoid/evade tax because of greed
Social security and taxation prosecutions, Australia, counts, 1989-2003 Source: Redrawn
from figures originally appearing as a graph in the Journal of Social Policy, and in a
presentation by Greg Marston (2007). Much the same could be drawn for Britain except
that social security fraud has been falling in recent years while tax avoidance/evasion has
been rising greatly (Horton and Gregory, 2009, page 211). Widespread greed makes us
progressively care more for ourselves and our immediate gratification and more suspicious
of others and other types of planning.
We pay more in ‘interest’ because of greed
Debt payments as % of disposable income, United States, 1980-2008 One persons’ greed
pollutes all others’ lives, raises house prices for them and sees less spent on social housing,
further congests their roads, reduces educational spending for the many in favour of a few,
personal
income
inaccording
the USA
sees health care being sold on a private market
rather than
allocated
to need,
and even pollutes the thinking of society as aspent
whole. The
above and
is drawn
from data
ongraph
interest
rent
provided by the Federal Reserve Board on required debt payments on mortgage and
consumer debt, automobile lease payments, rental payments, insurance, and property tax
payments (Foster 2006 gives data source).
The five tenets end in rising despair
1. “elitism is efficient”…
2. “exclusion is necessary”…
3. “prejudice is natural”
4. Greed is good!
Despair is the final injustice of the five new faces of inequality, mutating from the old social
evil of widespread physical disease. Health services now exist that effectively treat and
contain most physical disease in affluent countries. However, while most physical maladies
are now well treated with high-quality care in all but the most unequal of rich countries,
mental illness has been measured and found to rising across the rich world. Almost all of
that rise is due to the fastest increases in measured rates of depression and anxiety rising
found to be within the most economically unequal of affluent nations.
5.Despaircomestobeseenas
.........Inevitable
Children in unequal rich countries
are suffering rising anxiety
Reports
from trials
Girls assessed in
Adolescent girls assessed as depressed, %, North America,
1984-2001. as
In this graph circle
North America
size is drawn proportionate to clinical trail size. Source: Reanalysis of (Costello, Erkanli et al.
depressed by
2006) The data shown above are for those studies where the children lived in the United
age
15found in more
States, the U. S. territory of Puerto Rico, or Canada. The around
same trend
is not
equitable affluent nations, but is found in data drawn from Britain and among adults as
well as children. One in three families in Britain now live with a family member suffering from
poor mental health. This is most often depression or anxiety.
More and more pills are prescribed
The rate of
prescribing
antidepressants
by the NHS in
Scotland
Prescriptions per day per 1000 people, mainly of SSRIs (such as Prozac), 1992-2006. Across
the whole of Scotland prescription of antidepressants rose over the course of the 1997 to
2005 period to include almost a tenth of the population regularly being dosed up (far more
in parts of Glasgow). All this before the summer of 2007, the crash of 2008, and the gloom
of 2009. Source: NHS (2007, Table 1.1, page 12). Measuring: Defined Daily Doses per 1,000
people aged 15+. Note: The National Health Service uses financial years when reporting on
prescribing rates. Possibly because costs are still mainly counted in terms of money rather
than human misery?
Young men are also particularly vulnerable
Men dying per
woman by age
and birth cohort
Male/female mortality ratio by age in the rich world (1850–1999). Although higher rates of
anxiety and depression are recorded for women than men, it is men who suffer the bulk of
the excess premature mortality that now accompanies perceived economic failure and
particularly age cohorts entering the labour market at the wrong time. Source: original
Failure
Cigarettes
figure given in Rigby and Dorling
(2007), sample
size 1 billion people. Note: Each line refers
to the cohort born in the decade it is labelled by. The X axis gives ages. The Y axis gives
how many more times a man of that age born in that decade is likely to die in a year as
compared to a women living in the same set of countries born at the same time and of the
same age.
In 2009/2010 many trends went “off-scale”
Home Loans
USA
1977-2009
Annual
change
United States mortgage debt (% change and $bn) 1977-2008. All was very
far from
And
$ good at
the height of the boom, but there is now much more to be fearful of. Right hand axis, net
$billion additional borrowed in year shown by the bars in the graph. Leftbillions
hand axis: %
change in that amount. Final percentage change unknown but to be based on a
denominator of ‘just’ -$46bn (the only negative bar). It is show plummeting down off the
scale. Bar and line for 2009 figures are included above2009…
as known by Q1 2010. Source:
United States Federal Reserve (Debt growth, borrowing and debt
! outstanding tables).
Old divides are being widened again
In 1934 as a result of the
1929 crash, special areas
were created in an Act of
parliament. Money was
moved north. In 2010
money is being moved
from
regeneration
There is asouth
North-South
/ West-East
Divide in who is carrying most of the cost. The Audit
Commission published figures during 2009 showing how budgets in the North were being
schemes and area
cut to fund the housing market bail-out in the South in a report aptly titled “when it comes
initiative
to help
fund is the social, economic and political divide in
to the crunch”.
The divide
shown above
England. Below the line people live about a year more on average; identical houses cost
various bail-outs.
much more, people in similar situations are more likely to vote Conservative than above
the line, and much more besides. For a more detailed description of the line and exactly
where it is estimated to run see: www.sasi.group.shef.ac.uk/maps/nsdivide
www.sasi.group.shef.ac.uk/maps/nsdivide
Clear thinking is harder
in more unequal countries
Before you ask what is
to be done, you have
to decide what is
wrong that you
currently may condone.
In becoming a grossly
unequal society it is
“Perhaps the most serious problem created by growing inequality
that it facilitates
the
usually isclear
thinking
reproduction of the politics and ideology of inequality.” (Irvin, 2008) Such politics sees
among
the and
first
inequality rise as in recession it is the low skilled who arethat
laid offisfirst
and in growth
those with what are seen as high skills who benefit most
from ‘competition’
(Kelsey,
1997).
casualties
of new
levels
The mantra that “greed is still good” is played to the rhythm of “there is no alternative”
of ‘normal’
inequality
sung to the tune that “massive cuts demonstrate economic
responsibility”.
Quick gains are possible
You can only do that which you come to
believe is possible, acceptable and desirable.
First you need to know. For instance:
More people aged 5 to 25 are killed by cars
than in any other way in the UK.
So 20mph speed limit in residential areas should
be a key public health policy.
Thoughts and memories can be made foggy by living for too long under too much
inequality. What was seen clearly as injustice began to be excused as inevitable. Unless
you look around at most of the rest of the rich world for alternatives, and at all of the rest of
the world for what happens when you are so mistaken. Can we aim to only be as unequal
as the average OECD country. Is that too much of an aspiration?
Other changes take longer
In affluent countries with elitist education all
children do worse at school. Solutions:
Ensure the nearest school to every child is
funded by need, not just numbers.
Introduce free higher education for those who
attend their nearest university.
education
from
a redistribution
If all this isFund
obviously
just, sensible and
fair then
why is it not done?of
It ismonies
not done because of
what people
in the
most
unequal ofamong
affluent nations
have
come
to
believe
and have been
from
the
wealthy
the
old,
not
by
putting
taught. Far too many believe that they themselves are amongst the most able tiny fraction,
the
young
into
debt.At the extremes over half belief they are in the top
or that their
children
are the
brightest.
tenth by favours measures. In beliefs such as this we have become more stupid than we
once were. Slow down, stop it, what is in your interest is what is also in others’ interest.
Circumstances of our making
In an affluent country we choose the rate of
poverty we are prepared to live with.
We do this by deciding that a few people can
be paid very highly and tax them very low.
We do this by deciding that many others should
receive minimal benefits.
We could collectively decide that there are limits to what the highest paid can be paid.
Most
people
in Itmost
countries
ofthem
theto keep the
Those who
run large
institutions.
would affluent
then be easier
to encourage
pay of others below their pay. What it would be socially acceptable to receive in income
world made better choices.
would change. This is no utopia. It is normality where most people live in most affluent
nations. But getting back to normality is difficult when you have become addicted to
models of competition. Do all this and it is possible to imagine having safety nets, benefit
levels, that most people would be prepared to rely on.
Money is not the best metric
Mass idleness cannot be reduced without a
reduction in prejudice.
The ideal of more than 80% of working age
adults being paid for their labour is an ideal that
puts markets above all else and sees caring for
others only of value when done in the market.
Why are we trying to get richer? We can now produce far more than we need to consume
and enough
to selloptions
overseas tomost
fund more
than it iswould
safe for usrarely
to consume.
We are living in
Given
people
be idle
the first generation where there are enough material goods for everyone's needs in the UK.
choice.
They are by
just badly
shared out. What we also lack is freedom to choose what we do with
our time. Most people in work worked far fewer hours one, two or three decades ago. Far
fewer were unemployed, sick, or otherwise not economically active of working age then
also. Paid work can be better shared out. Unpaid work can be better valued. Again this is
not utopia. It is just normality in most other places as nominally rich as we are.
Another world already exists
Almost everyone could be made better-off if
they were not sold (and did not buy) the story
that to do well you must have more than others.
Running more than one car is an expense worth
avoiding. Owning more than one home is not
necessary. Private swimming pools are not the
luxury
they
tell the
you.
If the very
rich really
did have
broadest smile on their faces every minute of every
waking hour then perhaps it would be worth trying so hard to join them and do others
down on the way. Celebrity magazines and carefully edited television presents an image
of people smiling far more often than is humanly positive given cramp and the limits of our
facial muscles. Wealth brings fear as well as security. It breeds mistrust within affluent
families and a distain for others. How else do you excuse your wealth if you are not
someone special? The new squalor of our times is greed. It is not an easy habit to kick.
University of Queensland:
http://www.bsl.org.au/pdfs/Greg_Marston_Welfare_fraud&fiction_29Nov07_.pdf
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