What The Spirit Level did differently was showing the evidence that linked more equal societies – and the UK's more unequal one – with the ways our society often performs worse than our peer countries in health, education, trust, happiness, crime and more. The questions it raised helped shape a huge amount of the politics of the last decade and a half. Now that we have billionaires throwing their cash around to buy power and even more people feel shut out of society, the question "are we being short changed by inequality?" feels pretty conclusively answered.
The Good Society picks up in many ways where it left off. We all know that our society went in the wrong direction, so now the question is how to right it and what that would look like. I know for a lot of us, that's not an easy question to answer! We've repeatedly heard in the weekly polls we run that many of us are feeling a lot of anger or despair about the world and we're struggling to envision a better future, let alone figure out how to start working for one.
That's what The Good Society is setting out to do: show how societies like ours can take meaningful steps towards something better using examples from other countries and three decades of evidence. Our current inequality crisis wasn't inevitable, but a product of political choices – and Pickett aims to show all the better choices our society could start making tomorrow.
That's why we're being joined at the launch by some fantastic guests, including Baroness Ruth Lister (who's an instrumental part of our Poverty and Inequality APPG), writer George Monbiot, and former leader of the Green Party Caroline Lucas. It's important that we're not just fighting against inequality, but fighting for a society where everyone can live a good life.
So please do join us and our friends at Compass, our guests, and Professor Kate Pickett this Wednesday evening to start working towards the good society! |
