Letters

Defending The Spirit Level5th August 2010 Matthew Sinclair from the Taxpayers' Alliance (August) imagines he has spotted statistical sleight of hand in our book The Spirit Level, about the damaging consequences of inequality, that hundreds of our fellow academics have failed to detect. We took our data from the best sources, including the World Health Organisation, the UN and the World Bank. To double-check our findings, we repeated our analyses for the 50 US states, to see if more unequal states showed the same tendency to have worse health and social problems. In almost 30 different cross-national analyses, we showed the same tendency for problems to be significantly worse in societies with bigger income differences. The choice of problems we examined was partly decided by the availability of internationally comparable data. But to safeguard against the criticism that we picked problems to suit our argument, we showed (in a paper published by the British Medical Journal) that the Unicef index of child wellbeing, which we had no hand in compiling, is also strongly related to inequality. We never cherry picked data points to suit our argument—unlike our critics, who arbitrarily exclude or add countries in an attempt to hide the associations. Yet even if we take all our critics' exclusions together— the Scandinavian countries, Japan, and southern states of the US—our index of ten key health and social problems remains strongly related to inequality. Such relationships have been so widely demonstrated by other researchers that attacks just on our work can only fail. As early as 1993, a review of 34 studies of income inequality and violent crime showed a robust correlation between the two. Work since then has continued to confirm the link. And our own review of research published in peer-reviewed journals found that the tendency for health to be worse in more unequal societies has been demonstrated well over a hundred times. In contrast to our critics, we also offer a coherent theory of why so many health and social problems are linked to greater inequality. Rather than being caused directly by material conditions or being simply a reflection of selective social mobility (sorting the resilient from the vulnerable), the link with income inequality suggests that problems associated with social status are responses to the stresses of social status differentiation itself. We remain puzzled by the stance of the Taxpayers' Alliance. Greater equality need not depend on high taxation. The state of New Hampshire has among the lowest taxes in the US. It has no income or state sales tax but, like other more equal states, it does well in terms of many social measures, like rates of infant mortality, homicides, teenage pregnancies, imprisonment, levels of trust and children's school performance. It stands as an example of the benefits of a fairer and more equal society. Richard Wilkinson and Kate PickettRead this letter in full at:www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/2010/08/in-defence-of-equalityCapitalism 4.030th July 2010 What little factual analysis there is in Anatole Kaletsky's cover story (August) tends to contradict his own argument. On health, for example, his chart shows a clear if crude correlation between direct public provision and lowest overall costs. There is no discussion of the known inefficiencies and perverse incentives of largely privatised healthcare, which have driven market-leaning Switzerland to bring its system under public control over the past 15 years. Nor of the impact on health outcomes under different systems, like in Scandinavia, Germany, Canada, Australia and France. Of course the free market (and huge natural resources) powered American economic success. But too many of its serious problems in education, health and social inequality can be linked to a rising ideological distrust of public provision—and fair taxes—which we must avoid. Colin E QuinneyLeamington Spa, WarwickshireFrance right on Rwanda11th August 2010 In response to Mary Fitzgerald's report from Rwanda (August), we must ask ourselves how the Anglosphere ended up supporting the current Rwandan dictatorship, characterised by minority rule and political killings. The French were branded as culprits for giving military aid to the (Hutu) government prior to the slaughter of Tutsis. Sadly, the French policy made sense. As soon as the Ugandan-based Tutsi insurgents started making inroads into Rwanda in the early 1990s, the nightmare prospect arose of the 15 per cent minority Tutsi "masters" once again ruling over the 85 per cent Hutus. At this point, the US and Britain should have pressured Uganda into withdrawing its support for the Tutsi insurgents, and offered covert military assistance to the Hutu authorities. Upholding the authority of Rwanda's government would have prevented the genocide of the Tutsis and the subsequent "revenge" genocide of fleeing Hutus in the Congo. Moreover, a Hutu-run Rwanda would not have conspired to take over neighbouring parts of the Congo, unlike the regime today which, along with Congolese rebel factions, has wreaked havoc. And the west would have been well-placed to persuade a Hutu-run Rwanda to respect its Tutsi minority. Of course, Rwanda would have remained Francophone instead of becoming Anglophone. But Rwandan language policy is hardly a vital US or British interest, nor anything to do with an "ethical" foreign policy. Yugo Kovach Winterborne Houghton, DorsetThe play's still the thing6th August 2010 The National Theatre has never set out to compare its live broadcasts with the theatre experience, as John Nathan (August) suggests, and the response we've had from the 150,000 people who attended the broadcasts in our first season has been almost universally positive. The fact that people in Newcastle, New York, or Oulu, Finland can now have a relationship with the work of the National Theatre confirms that the broadcasts are a marvellous way to engage new audiences and may only increase their craving, as research has shown, for more of the "real thing." David Sabel Head of digital media, National TheatrePaywalls could pay off23rd July 2010 Joy Lo Dico's article on Rupert Murdoch's paywall (June) misrepresents the National Union of Journalists' policy. The NUJ is not withholding support for the paywall, but adopting a wait and see approach. If it works, it will be one way to help pay for professional journalism. But it is unlikely to be a one-size-fits-all solution. There is no love lost between the NUJ and Murdoch, but there is no advantage to the NUJ if his plan fails. We need new models to make journalism pay, but we must be sure they work. Donnacha DeLong Vice-president, NUJBad loans were to blame26th July 2010 Stephen Nickell (August) is wrong to claim loose mortgage lending was not a factor in Britain's financial crisis. Bradford & Bingley collapsed because of the state of its loan book—dominated by buy-to-let and self-certified mortgages—and the bad perception of British lending partly led to a loss of confidence among international investors. Nickell assumes that the avoidance of a US-style short-term crash in house prices has come at no long-term cost. Yet our high levels of mortgage debt make us much more vulnerable to future economic shocks. This is not cost free—just ask any pensioner reliant on a decent income from their savings. William Griffith PricedOut.org.uk

Read letters from Denis MacShane MP; Christopher Coville, head of Westland Helicopters; Roma Hooper, director of Make Justice Work, and many more at: www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/2010/08/august-letters