Spirited Debate

This month we welcomed Chris Snowden along who examined the assertion made by the best selling book 'The Spirit Level' that 'more equal societies almost always do better.'  Chris has penned his own response to that publication entitled 'The Spirit Level Delusion' and his talk sought to examine what he believes are the short comings in the theory.

Chris illustrated his talk with plenty of graphs. They all, basically, attempted to demonstrate the same thing. Whether it be levels of trust, obesity, prison population or just about any other measure of an ill of society those nations deemed more equal were doing better and those with greater inequality were doing worse.

However, when Chris set about examining the data behind these graphs he found some issues.  For example, the authors of 'The Spirit Level' used 6 different measures of inequality throughout their book. This could be argued as moving the inequality goal-posts to make the statistics fit the theory. When Chris added extra nations ignored by the authors of 'The Spirit Level' he found that the much vaunted correlations no longer existed.

Anyway, correlation does not automatically equal causation.  For example, when looking at the prison population of any given nation you see that Scandinavian countries and Japan have a much lower number of prisoners that the United States.  However, for this to be a valid measure you would need to ensure that all the nations had exactly the same sentencing system.  Of course, they do not.  The sentencing regime in the United States is harsher than in Japan.  So we are not comparing like with like.

Chris then examined the idea of inequality itself.  He maintained that inequality and poverty are not the same thing.  For example, you could have a society where everyone was poor and in that sense they were all equal and inequality would be non-existent.  But would we want to live there?  To Chris the important measure is living standards and that is the measure by which we should be judging success.

In the Question & Answer session with the audience many were outraged that, to them, Chris seemed to be making light of inequality.  I have to say I didn't see it this way.  To Chris inequality is simply a measure of the gap between one part of society and another.  It doesn't necessarily mean that those in the lower half are actually suffering or in poverty.  However, to many in the audience inequality is clearly a social ill in itself rather than a dry statistic.

Personally, I thought it was an excellent evening where people's beliefs were put to the test. It can sometimes seem at Skeptics events that the audience is of a largely liberal persuasion and so are the speakers.  To get a guest who actually makes you examine you own ideas of what inequality actually is and how loaded the term has become was enlightening.

We should be wary of anybody from whatever side of the political landscape who arrives with an easily digestible 'theory of everything' offering a panacea to society's ills. In a complicated world such ideas have a beguiling simplicity to them.  As Skeptics we need to maintain a critical eye however alluring such ideas may be. Especially the ones that chime with some of our core beliefs.

NEXT MONTH:  John Issitt will join us to talk about 'The Limits of Reason' - Thursday 15th May - 7 for 7:30 at The White Horse - More details HERE.