Equality is Great...Not!

Back in January (just catching up on some pre-blog reports) Margaret Wente decided to turn her heavy artillery against British author Richard Wilkinson's new book The Spirit Level: Why Equality is Better for Everyone.  Wilkinson suggests that more equal societies are less prone to crime, drug abuse and even health problems like heart disease. Wente claims she has nothing against equality but suggests you can "fire a cannonball through his thesis", then proceeds to do so.

Or at least Wente tries. She begins with Japan, a country which scores well in the equality rankings. Japan, Wente says, is "sexist" and "xenophobic." Well, it probably is, and I think the Japanese have bizarre tastes in rock music as well, but since when did these problems stem from equality? I think  that Wilkinson is not trying to say that egalitarian countries are perfect, just that equality ameliorates a whole host of social problems. She also points out that in Japan "nobody has children any more." In fact, in worldwide terms, Japan's birthrate is not much lower than Canada's. And if high birth rates were an indicator of a country's desirability as a place to live, sub-Saharan countries like Niger would be paradise. Something tells me they're not. Also, low birth rates usually occur in countries where women have rights and make their own reproductive choices. So maybe Japan is not as sexist as Wente suggests.

So Wente then takes aim at the other big winners in the equality derby, the Scandinavian countries, . Ah, but these countries are more homogeneous, Wente suggests. "Small nations where everyone is basically related tend to foster more equality and trust than big nations where they're not." Well, Japan is homogeneous too, but in their case she calls it, not homogeneity, but xenophobia. Perhaps it's the equality that fosters the homogeneity. After all, a country (like Norway) that pays its janitors the equivalent of $50,000-a-year and gives them five weeks vacation, doesn't have to import people from poorer and more desperate countries to do the low-status jobs for them, so they tend to remain homogeneous (not that homogeneity is necessarily a good in itself).

Wente concludes by saying that "Canada's $6 million CEOs" are the wrong target for our moral outrage. Rather, we should direct our attention towards the hedge fund managers and investment bankers who contitute the "new super-duper global uber-elite." Wente says these people with their isolation and arrogance  "scare the heck out of me." Well, they kinda scare the heck out of me too, but I think you'll find the "uber-elite" tend to live, not in countries like Canada that are fairly equal, but rather in countries that tolerate, nay promote, inequality. So I'll stick with the egalitarian countries, thank you very much, and if Canada moves closer to the top of that list, then I'm all for it.