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Arts & books

Is inequality to blame for all social ills?

  4th May 2009  —  Issue 158
There is a growing academic and even political consensus about how damaging inequality, not just poverty, can be. But things may not be as simple as they seem

The Spirit Level
By Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett (Allen Lane, £20)

Unjust Rewards
By Polly Toynbee and David Walker (Granta, £7.99)

Francis Bacon once said that money is like muck: of no use unless it is equally spread. It’s a view that would be wholly endorsed by all four of the authors under review, although for rather different reasons.

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