Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett (2009): The SpiritLevel. Why More Equal Societies Almost Always DoBetter. Allen Lane, London

Stefan Liebig

Published online: 4 February 2012

� Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012

The Spirit Level. Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better by the British

epidemiologists Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett found broad resonance in the

media upon its publication in 2009. This is not surprising, as it makes a very simple

and, at first sight, alluring statement: by reducing income differences in a society, it

is possible to eliminate all social problems and ills. Income equality reduces

people’s stress levels and prevents the associated physical and mental illnesses;

members of society trust and support one another, live in harmonious relationships,

do not take drugs, are not overweight, are more intelligent, and do not have to

commit criminal acts. Who would not want to live in a world like this? Yet

whenever simple solutions are offered for complex problems and correlations, a

degree of skepticism is healthy. And that is true of this book in particular.

The basic idea is to use empirical data to answer the normative question of how

goods should be distributed in a society. This sounds like a case of the naturalistic

fallacy—that is, deriving a normative statement from a descriptive one—but on

closer inspection, it is not. The call for equal distribution of social goods presented

in the book is derived from the notion that inequality reduces the wellbeing of all

(sic!) members of a society. This means that decreasing inequality appears to be a

means of increasing the general wellbeing and welfare of a society. Equality or

inequality of the distribution of wealth is therefore not a matter of morality. If there

is sufficient guarantee that inequality has negative consequences for individual or

social wellbeing, political acumen requires us to strive for an egalitarian society.

This is precisely what the authors aim to demonstrate.

The method to be used is clear: take several societies—in this particular case, the

authors concentrate on the 23 richest countries—that differ in their degree of social

inequality, then examine whether a correlation between the level of inequality and a

S. Liebig (&)

Collaborative Research Center 882: ‘From Heterogeneities to Social Inequalities’,

Department of Sociology, Bielefeld University, P.O. Box 10 01 31, 33501 Bielefeld, Germany

e-mail: stefan.liebig@uni-bielefeld.de

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DOI 10.1007/s11211-012-0148-9

number of different indicators of individual wellbeing and social welfare may be

observed. The first thing needed is a way of measuring social inequality. Although

understanding social inequality as a multidimensional construct is now an integral

part of sociological research on social inequality (the relevant dimensions being, for

instance, income, power, prestige, education, or social security) and a distinction

must be drawn between inequalities in distribution and inequalities of opportunity,

Wilkinson and Pickett confine themselves to income. They justify this decision by

arguing that there are no other indicators available for international comparative

analyses—which does initially seem to make sense. To measure the extent of

income inequality, they choose the ratio of income of the top 20% to the lower 20%

in a society, drawing on data from the United Nations Human Development Report.

The 23 countries are ranked according to their degree of income inequality, the

Scandinavian countries and Japan representing one extreme with the lowest income

inequality, and UK, Portugal, the USA, and Singapore the other extreme with the

highest income inequality.

On the basis of this ranking, the authors then present a correlation between the

degree of income inequality and a total of nine social problems, which are identified

as ‘‘costs of inequality’’: (1) community life and social relations, (2) mental health

and drug use, (3) physical health and life expectancy, (4) obesity, (5) educational

performance, (6) teenage pregnancies, (7) violence, (8) crime and punishment, and

(9) unequal opportunities for intergenerational social mobility. The authors refer to

the findings of a large number of epidemiological studies, social science surveys,

and OECD and UN data. However, the crux of their argument is always presented in

a neat graph, in which they show the degree of income inequality on the x-axis and

the extent of the relevant social problems—normally the mean values for the

various countries—on the y-axis. The result is always a ‘‘point cloud’’ formed by the

individual countries, through which the authors draw a straight line. The gradient of

this line is intended to demonstrate the correlation between income inequality and

the relevant social problem.

For each of the nine social problems—just as to be expected after reading the

introductory chapters—a correlation with the degree of a society’s income

inequality emerges: countries with lower income inequality show a low level of

the various problems, while in countries with higher income inequality people have

less trust and a higher level of mental illnesses, consume more drugs, have worse

general health and lower life expectancy, the rate of obesity is higher and

educational performance is lower, there are more teenage pregnancies, there is more

violence and crime, prisons are overcrowded, and children from disadvantaged

sections of the population have poorer career prospects.

These findings, at first glance impressively consistent, immediately raise the

question whether the extent of income inequality alone—in the sense of a

monocausality—can in fact be held accountable for all this. Wilkinson and Pickett

feel compelled to draw that conclusion. They justify it by linking together two

arguments. The first is that the social problems observed at the level of society as a

whole can be attributed to increased status competition and social anxiety among

individual members of society. People who constantly find themselves competing

with others not only develop psychological symptoms of stress, which then turn into

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physical illnesses in the long term, but are also more suspicious of others, more

likely to resort to sedative or stimulant drugs and—driven by fears of social

exclusion and the experience of social contempt—tend toward violence and

delinquent behavior, etc. The second argument is that a high degree of income

inequality describes a societal situation in which there is a high level of status

competition. As inequality in a society increases, there is more competition between

individual members of the society, the risk of status loss is greater, and social

anxieties are exacerbated. All in all, this means that income inequality increases

status competition and social anxiety, which in turn triggers stress responses in

individuals and is expressed in an increase of the above-mentioned social problems

at the level of society as a whole. Conversely, it means if we want a society without

these social problems, we will have to establish an egalitarian distribution of

income, because this will enable us to reduce the status competition and social

anxieties responsible for the ills identified. Hence, an egalitarian society is

demanded not by morality, but—according to the empirical findings—by political

acumen.

This is further corroborated by a third argument: for Wilkinson and Pickett, an

egalitarian distribution of income is also essential because it not only helps those

who are less well off but produces welfare effects for all citizens. The daily life of

those who are materially better off is also threatened by a high degree of

competition and status anxiety. They too develop symptoms of physical and

psychological illness, as is evident from the generally poor state of health of the

entire population of societies with high levels of income inequality. And, of course,

it is also in the interest of this part of the population if a community does not have to

allocate as much public funding to combating social problems (crime, drug use, high

morbidity, etc.) and can reduce taxes instead.

At first, this argumentation closely follows an explanatory model that is very

common in social sciences. In the first step, the question is asked how structural

conditions in a society—e.g., the distribution of income—at the macrolevel

determine the everyday situation, the opportunities, and restrictions of its individual

members on the microlevel. In the second step, it is shown how individuals behave

in view of these social conditions (microlevel); in order then, in the third step, to

identify the social consequences on the macrolevel that result when all or some of

the members of society display a particular type of behavior. Using this macro–

micro–macro-model of explanation it is in fact possible to discover causal links

between social phenomena, because it is possible to specify in more detail the

mechanisms by which social phenomena emerge and/or are changed by individual

actions and behavior. In this respect, no objections can be made to Wilkinson and

Pickett’s argumentation strategy. But there is a substantial gap between theoretical

reasoning and empirical proof: As the authors are exclusively using aggregated data

on the societal or macrolevel they are not able to test their ‘‘micro’’ assumptions,

how the distribution of income in a society really affects individual behavior—for

this endeavor one needs comparative data on the microlevel, i.e., survey data.

What is more important, however, is that in their second argument they make a

link which does not hold as such. They equate income inequalities with status

inequalities, inferring a high level of status inequality from the existence of high

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income inequality. But this is precisely the equation that cannot be made—because

in modern societies a high income is not synonymous with high status, and vice

versa. Inferring high status competition in a society from a high level of income

inequality in that society is also inadmissible, as there are societies with high status

inequality and thus high status competition despite lower income inequality. The

classic example is Japan. Consequently, Wilkinson and Pickett’s explanation is not

really convincing. It then becomes questionable whether the empirical findings

presented can in fact be attributed consistently and solely to the phenomenon of

income inequality—particularly as so many examples of ‘‘spurious correlations’’

can be found in the natural and social sciences (such as the famous example of the

number of storks and the number of newborn babies).

Do the consistent empirical findings not speak for themselves? Are they not

enough to demonstrate that egalitarian societies are better societies? This is

precisely where a methodological critique is called for. To begin with a fundamental

point, the findings presented all show only correlations between two variables. This

means first that they cannot be interpreted in terms of a direct causal link. Second,

the correlations are established only very imprecisely in the graphs: to show the

strength of a correlation, it is not sufficient to draw a somewhat associatively

selected straight line through a point cloud. Sophisticated statistical methods are

now available that would need, at least, to be cited as evidence of the findings

depicted in the graphs. Furthermore, correlations are not necessarily linear and

constant: they can perfectly well—and this applies to many social phenomena—take

quite different courses. We also know that statistical correlations are strongly

determined by individual extreme cases or ‘‘outliers.’’ What is particularly striking

about the findings reported is that, for instance, the USA represents the most

negative pole for most social problems, but other countries show a considerably

higher level of income inequality. At the same time, there are a number of examples

in which countries differing dramatically in income inequality show either the same

level of the social problems studied or else a correlation contrary to that set out by

the authors.

More important is that to prove the stated causal effects, it is not sufficient to

present bivariate, cross-sectional results: the correlation between two variables may

also be caused by a third variable which exerts its effect indirectly via one of the

others. This is very plausible for at least some of the correlations reported in the

book. Hence, the differences in the general state of health and in educational

participation or performance might also be explained by the very different

institutional structure of the national health and education systems. Cultural

differences between the countries, too, may be responsible for the differences

observed. This applies, for example, to eating habits and the findings on obesity. As

opposed to the linear correlation Wilkinson and Pickett believe they see, it is quite

possible to identify a pattern of ‘‘clustering’’ according to cultural similarity: central

and northern European vs. southern European. Controlling for third variables of this

kind, and thus allowing the influence of income inequality on the relevant social

problems to be unambiguously identified, requires more complex statistical

methods. This book therefore suggests a lack of ambiguity in the findings that is

not in fact the case.

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At the same time, it is now a generally held view that causal effects in social

sciences can only be clearly identified using longitudinal data. It must thus be shown

that a change in income inequality in one country has the postulated consequence

for the relevant social problems. As Wilkinson and Pickett claim that a reduction of

income inequality would alleviate the social problems in a society, this is the effect

they need to demonstrate. As income inequality in the 23 countries studied has

changed over time, particularly since 1980s (see OECD 2008), this would be

feasible in principle. A reduction in income inequality would then have to have led

to—delayed—effects pertaining to the social problems. This type of longitudinal

findings is not reported, however.

A number of other methodological difficulties could be cited—for instance, using

only needs-adjusted net household income is problematic as the resulting inequality

measure is not only a result of the income distribution but also of the distribution of

household sizes which differs between societies.

Overall, this book thus does not provide adequate—in the sense of methodo-

logically sound—empirical findings which, first, allow an interpretation of the

observed social problems that attributes them solely to income inequalities and,

second, support the assumption that a reduction of income inequality would lead to

a reduction of the social problems identified.

The basic claim of this book is that egalitarian societies are just societies. Of

course, it is possible to do this from a particular normative position, but the debate

in political philosophy and the results from empirical research show that justice does

not necessarily mean equality. Nor can people’s understanding of justice be reduced

to equality. On the contrary, a central pillar of the concept of justice in modern

societies is the idea of rewarding individual performance. Just as there are

differences in individual performance and effort, so the rewards must also be

different. And, in fact, in national or even international comparative surveys only a

tiny minority of respondents advocate paying wages and salaries irrespective of

people’s individual effort and performance. The same pay for different levels of

performance is consequently regarded as unjust. Just societies are therefore not

necessarily ‘‘equal societies.’’

There is no doubt that a society with a high general level of health, low rate of

violence and crime, mutual trust, and so on is a ‘‘good’’ society and also desirable.

The basic assumption of this book is that this can be achieved through eliminating

differences in status by reducing income differences—but it does not provide

sufficient empirical evidence for that assumption. On the basis of the data presented

here, therefore, the demand for income equality cannot be justified as a dictate of

political acumen.

Finally, another fundamental question must be asked: is the social ideal that is the

implicit starting point and explicit goal of this book in fact desirable? This ideal

becomes clear when the authors write about the ‘‘better society.’’ Here, they operate

on the basis of relatively clear-cut dichotomies. They contrast the negatively

connoted ‘‘mass society’’ with the positively connoted ‘‘community,’’ and discuss

‘‘social status’’ and ‘‘friendship’’ as diametrically opposed principles of a social

order: on the one hand mass society, which is geared toward differences, power,

privileged access to resources with no consideration of others’ needs, hostility,

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exclusion, and social status, and on the other a community based on friendship,

balance, reciprocity, sharing, social responsibility, and recognition of others’ needs.

This is reminiscent of the culturally pessimistic models of society discussed at the

turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century, which drew on the duality of

community and society in a similar way. At that time, too, communities were

considered to be the social forms that enabled people to coexist in solidarity on the

basis of a common background, long-term relationships, and full equality. Of

course, at the beginning of the twenty-first century we are somewhat the wiser from

experience when it comes to realizing this type of society oriented to the ideal of the

community and the associated consequences. Communities do not only provide

warmth, identity, and support; they are also exclusive—specifically of those who do

not (or are not supposed to) belong—and often ignore the need for individuality and

the realization of fully individual lifestyles. Therefore, it is perhaps precisely

‘‘society,’’ or in Wilkinson and Pickett’s terminology ‘‘mass society’’—which also

allows impersonal relations for mutual benefit in which competition not only

burdens people but also spurs them on, and which is based on the plurality of

descent and diversity of lifestyles—that corresponds more closely to the need for

individuality and individual freedom. This is, of course, a question to be answered

normatively, not a matter to be decided by science.

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