CRITICAL SUMMARY

Critical Summary



Critical Summary

Introduction

The article in question is a work that summarizes many years of research in the field of social inequalities by Professor Wilkinson (University of Nottingham and University College London) and anthropologist Kate Pickett (University of York). The article is about inequality and social exclusion. Put another way, the authors explain why the sources of social exclusion rooted in social inequality and the position in the class structure of society and how the most unequal societies have, in general, worse health indicators, stress, violence and exclusion than those that are more egalitarian (Wilkinson and Pickett 2010, 5-9).

Discussion

Arguments of the author

The article divided into three parts. In the first, “material success, social failure” describes how the growth and wealth do not involve greater equality and greater welfare if while a society adopts policies levelling and redistribution of income and wealth, is the theoretical part of the article. In the second part, the article discusses the “cost of inequality” through the analysis of specific social problems (Christine 2010, 314-6). However, it does not exhaust the impact of inequality, such as the influence of inequality in the social relations, mental health, substance abuse, physical health and life expectancy, obesity, academic performance, the existence of adolescent mothers, violence, prison and social mobility. In the third part, the authors focus on “a better society” and draw conclusions and suggest policies that combine matching proposals with radical changes in lifestyles and consumption in consumer societies. Here, we refer to the main arguments raised by the authors, especially in the first and the third part, allowing the reader to analyze the second part of the cost of inequality (Wilkinson and Pickett 2006, 1768-1784).

With the current financial and economic crisis seems to have ended an epoch. Global societies face deep changes in the results and impacts in many ways depend on the structure of inequality in each country and the gap between the more developed and less developed and emerging markets. The contrast, especially in rich countries, between material success and social failure on many levels but does not express a structure of inequality accused. Reduce current levels of inequality can be a powerful equalizer in the collective welfare. The thesis of the authors is that a broken society and economy are broken results from increased inequality. That is inequality is not only effective but at the same time cause of failure in social welfare.

Proving arguments through evidence

Concretely the authors note that social and health problems strongly associated with the relative income of the sectors that compose it. To confirm this hypothesis, the authors have constructed an Index of Social and Health Problems that apply to the US States that compose it, twenty-three developed countries that together comprise the different models of welfare regime. Specifically relate income inequality with nine social problems that mentioned above. The basic thesis is that social and health problems tend to be less frequent in the most egalitarian countries compared to countries with higher levels of social ...