The Spirit Level Summary

Even a casual observer who looks at the world can see that inequality exists in society. But what exactly does inequality do to a society? Is inequality a result of multi-factored social mechanisms, or does inequality itself cause the social issues? Furthermore, while people see that inequality exists, they may not know where to begin in repairing societies defects. Richard G. Wilkinson, author of The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger, rightly argues that inequality is the acting social factor that divides society. To support this claim, Wilkinson presents data from various studies which draw an inverse correlation between the level of inequality and the height of social cohesion. His analysis shows that inequality

experienced to serve as an example of this larger problem. In 2005 Hurricane Katrina hit the southern coast, and the worst effects were seen in New Orleans, where most of the city was underwater after the city’s levee system failed. The result was thousands of trapped citizens and this catastrophe illustrated an interesting observation on how the government responded. Wilkinson writes, “Television news screens showed desperate residents begging for help, for baby food, for medicine, and then switched to images of troops, cruising the flooded streets in boats – not bringing them supplies, but, fully armed with automatic weapons, looking for looters (50).” Essentially, the example of the New Orleans disaster exposes an important observation that engages the reader to be sympathetic towards others- at some level citizens were treated in an unequal fashion. Most people know that inequality exists, but the extent of its reach may not be fully understood because people also see the U.S. as having a high standard of living for its citizens. By opening the chapter with the government’s response to a contemporary disaster, and the plight of real U.S. citizens, Wilkinson prompts the reader to become receptive to the idea that there is a misapplication of treatment that, indeed, is systemic in our

Wilkinson relies on historical events to contrast the difference between communities with low vs. high levels of trust. He refers to the sociologist Eric Klinenberg, author of Heat-Wave, where we have a historical event with two separate communities, and the health of these communities was impacted by the level of trust. African-American neighborhoods suffered more deaths compared to Hispanic neighborhoods because the African-American communities were less trustful compared to the Hispanic communities. It should be noted that these communities were prefaced as being “equally poor,” (57) indicating their relative socioeconomic equality was at the same level; however, Wilkinson’s thesis still stands valid because while different communities may trust differently, the overall rise of equality will bring directly increase trust, a phenomenon that’s consistent between nations that have widely different social