Sunday, March 15, 2009

Is Inequality The Cause Of Most Social Ills?

Obviously not the craziest hypothesis ever...but not all that plausible, either.

The kind of thing you'd predict some academicians somewhere would eventually come up with. Which is not to say it isn't true of course...

1 Comments:

Blogger matthew christman said...

Not all that plausible?

If you were to look at social outcomes, this seems to be the most obvious explanation for social dysfunction; rates of crime and other sundry social ills are lowest in Scandinavian countries with comprehensive welfare states and relatively low poor immigrant populations, higher in Western European countries with more poor immigrants but still robust saftey nets, and higher still in the Unitest States, which has the least robust welfare state of the developed world. Then, within the United States itself, social dysfunction is concentrated in the states with the weakest social welfare systems. Now, this doesn't mean inequality is defintiely the prime mover of social dysfunction, but it seems to be THE place that one would begin any inquiry into a cause.

10:40 PM  

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home