The Spirit Level Summary

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In The Spirit Level, Wilkinson and Pickett’s research shows that there is a strong connection between a rich country's level of economic inequality and its social consequences. They write, “The problems in rich countries are not caused by the society not being rich enough (or even by being too rich) but by the scale of material differences between people within each society being too big. What matters is where we stand in relation to others in our own society” (pg. 25). Status is measured and symbolized by indicators of conspicuous consumption in an economically unequal society. Using the theory of the social evaluative threat to drive their analysis they show how being status-conscious in a highly unequal society produces a social anxiety …show more content…

Our current political system is run by political competition to further each sides own political agendas and at times, there is a split within the political parties. When there is new legislation, it requires either approval in both the Senate and the House of Representatives along with the president’s signature or, in the case of a presidential veto, approval by two-thirds majorities in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. Problems arise when a political party within the Senate uses what they call a filibuster to impede policy change and in addition, congressional committees have considerable power that allow them to structure or hinder legislation as well. Notably, when a House committee has jurisdiction over a bill and wants to block it, it could be crucial to obtain a two-thirds vote for a discharge petition that would bring the bill to the floor (Rosenthal, 6). The power of multi-national corporations and Liberal-Conservative interest groups seem to shape the moral fiber of the change in policy when it does take place maintenance with the status quo of inequality currently in society. They do this by pushing for “reforms” that will allow weaker unions, deregulation, free trade, and privatization to continue their economic prosperity. The polarization of American politics is suggested in the growth of the incomes and …show more content…

According to Rosenthal, “the median voting citizen takes in nearly twice as much as the median non-citizen. These results suggest one factor that militates against public policies that would reduce inequality. Those who vote have relatively high incomes. Those who are ineligible to vote have relatively low incomes. Moreover, immigrants, regardless of citizenship status, are typically substantially better off than in their country of origins, their advocacy for redistribution may be tempered by this relative evaluation of their economic attainment” (29). To explain his theory more he uses information from Bean and Bell-Rose (1999, p. 13), who summarize recent research on immigration: “the most authoritative assessment of immigration’s economic consequences has been carried out by the National Research Council…The Council reached two major conclusions: Immigration exerts a positive effect on the U.S. economy overall but only a small adverse impact on the wage and employment opportunities of competing native groups; and immigration benefits high-skilled workers and the owners of capital but not low-skilled workers or

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