The Independent London Newspaper
RIOTS: Professor Richard Wilkinson on inequality and its link to this week's civil unrest
Published: 12 August 2011
WHAT the bankers with their bonuses and MPs with their expenses were doing was helping themselves when they thought they could get away with it.
The bankers and bosses of large companies are still helping themselves to large sums.
These sums are much larger than what the kids have been taking. The difference between what the bankers are doing and what the kids are doing is that the bankers can get away with it. The difference is the huge difference in social background.
Unemployment rates for 16-17-year-olds are at 40 per cent. With 18-24-year-olds it’s 20 per cent. When they get jobs they’re going to be working for close to the minimum wage because most of them will have no or little qualifications.
People are very aware of the lifestyles of celebrities, and the shops are full of what separates the kids from that lifestyle, so for them to smash windows and make off with mobile phones and trainers is surprising only in that it doesn’t happen more often.
Shops have been burnt, people have lost livelihoods and some have been burned out of their homes, but think of the shops and homes lost, and even the deaths, due to unemployment caused by a recession brought about by people who took unnecessary risks because of their avariciousness.
Yet people are threatened by the kids. They don’t feel threatened by the bankers and MPs and their expenses. I’ve been doing some sums and the amount of expenses they repaid before the election was £2,250. Some may have paid more but that’s the average. So that’s what they think they should repay.
The claim for second homes after the scandal was down by £6,000 per MP. So that’s an indication of what they thought they should be claiming. The kids are doing what they think they can get away with.
We show very clearly (in The Spirit Level) that the more unequal the society the more violence there is. There are so many research papers that show the same thing. We also show that the strength of community life, how much people feel they can trust each other, is weaker in more unequal societies.
Community life is the connection between people and what we do for each other and how we look after each other. When that breaks down it’s everyone for themselves and that is what we’re seeing.
Inequality in this country is as high as it’s been since the 1920s. It rose rapidly during the 1980s and has drifted upwards since. The kids are obviously not thinking about all of this. They are aware of the hopelessness of their own lives compared to other lives – how far they fall short.
Professor Wilkinson was talking to Andrew Johnson
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Except last I heard The
Except last I heard The Spirit Level was a laughing stock.
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