Does Greater Equality Make Societies Stronger?

My working plan for this blog is to go around in circles, treating in order the topics I put out there in the very first post:   the "both and" topic (that we must generally strive to respect both individual and economic rights and liberties, as exemplified in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and also in FDR's proposed second Bill of Rights); the importance of unions; the need to have more voices and parties represented in the national dialogue (beyond two parties);   the urgent need to abolish coroporate personhood;   the case for the abolition of money; and finally, anarchism.   Also part of the working plan is to have a post following the completion of each cycle for a general topic, reflection, book report, or whatever, before returning to the cycle of topics for one more round.

The last post was that "wild card" post, a book report on Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine," the reading of which was the main stimulus for this blog.

This post should represent a return to the cycle, and specifically to the "both and" topic.   Somewhat providentially, a friend recommended a book which seems to be on point with further consideration of the values of the Universal Declaration and of Roosevelt's Second Bill of Rights.   The book recommended by Ronnie Rodriquez, is "The Spirit Level" by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett.    Today's post is not exactly a book report, because I just got the book from the library and have barely begun reading it.   But I'm already quite excited by briefly skimming its contents and getting a general sense of what the authors are up to.   Wilkinson and Pickett are MEDICAL researchers, and this book is their report on extensive researches into the effects of social inequality on health and happiness.   Their conclusion is present in the subtitle of the book:   "Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger"

Intuitively, this makes sense to me, but it feels good, REALLY good, to pick up a book that suggests that there may be fairly hard empirical evidence confirming that this is the case.

I'll probably post a full report down the line once I've read and digested "The Spirit Level."  In the meantime I hope some of you reading this blog will check out the book as well.   Thanks for the suggestion, Ronnie.   http://www.amazon.com/Spirit-Level-Equality-Societies-Stronger/dp/1608193411/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1374819536&sr=1-1&keywords=the+spirit+level