Money makes people right-wing and inegalitarian

Andrzej-Krauze

 

"Rich people typically lean right politically. Are they motivated by deeply moral views or self-interest? Andrew J Oswald and Nick Powdthavee argue that money makes you right-wing. It shows that lottery winners in the UK are more likely to switch their allegiance from left to right."

The Inequality Gap

 From the RSA blog   Matthew Taylor

When doyen of conservative columnists Charles Moore writes a column entitled ‘I’m starting the think the Left might actually be right’ it’s time to sit up and take notice. His article contains this paragraph:


‘ The rich run a global system that allows them to accumulate capital and pay the lowest possible price for labour. The freedom that results applies only to them. The many simply have to work harder, in conditions that grow ever more insecure, to enrich the few. Democratic politics, which purports to enrich the many, is actually in the pocket of those bankers, media barons and other moguls who run and own everything.’

Moore’s analysis is confirmed by a report published today but the excellent Resolution Foundation. The report’s headline finding is this:

‘ The share of national income going to the bottom half of earners in Britain has fallen dramatically over the last 30 years…..These ordinary workers have seen their share of GDP fall by a quarter, at the same time as the share going to the top 1% of earners increased by half.’

Not only does gross inequality seem endemic to modern ‘free market’ capitalism but from the work of Picket and Wilkinson and others it seems at least very likely that among rich countries more unequal societies are also more unhappy societies with greater social problems.

Failing Before School

The clear links between early child development and later adult outcomes do not bode well for children of the poorest families, who, as new research has shown, are much more likely to exhibit clinically relevant social and emotional problems than their wealthier peers, writes Yvonne Kelly.

From the LSE Blog

Thick and Lazy

Zoe Williams' piece in the Guardian is partly ideological but then, what isn't?

Read it anyway

And in the Midlands, a different early-years charity of 40 years' standing had to sit through the gob-smacking naivety of a new coalition minister telling them to organise meetings for new parents in the local Starbucks, on estates where there are as many branches of Starbucks as there are new parents with £2.50 to spare for a cup of coffee.

Naivety can be fun to poke people with but when there's such enormous distance between the naive and the people they're have power over things get stupidly dangerous.

Parents "need to be aware of the sensitive period for emotional development in the earliest 18 months and the particular need during that period to avoid stress, domestic violence, physical abuse and neglect". Stress and domestic violence are here portrayed as things you can engage in or eschew at will, like going out clubbing in a sparkly boob tube: you've had your fun girls, but now you've got a baby you really have to put all these indulgences behind you.

Avoid domestic violence? There's a thought! Shame, then, that domestic violence funding is  being cut by 100% in some areas and the statistic of two women being killed a week by an ex or current partner hasn't changed in decades.

How Fair Is Britain?

"A landmark report released today by the Equality and Human Rights Commission paints a picture of a largely tolerant and open-minded society, in which some equality gaps have closed over the past generation.

"But How fair Is Britain?, the most comprehensive compilation of evidence on discrimination and disadvantage ever compiled in Britain, also shows that other long-standing inequalities remain undiminished; and that new social and economic fault-lines are emerging as Britain becomes older and more ethnically and religiously diverse.

• Men and women from the highest social class can expect to live up to seven years longer, on average, than those from lower socio-economic groups (based on life expectancy at birth). 
• Black Caribbean and Pakistani babies are twice as likely to die in their first year as Bangladeshi or White British babies.
• At age five, 35 per cent of pupils known to be eligible for free school meals achieved a good level of development, compared to 55 per cent of pupils not eligible for free school meals.
• The mean gender pay gap for women and men working full-time in 2009 was 16.4 per cent; and progress today appears to be grinding to a halt. Women aged 40 earn on average 27 per cent less than men of the same age. Women with degrees are estimated to face only a four per cent loss in lifetime earnings as a result of motherhood, while mothers with no qualifications face a 58 per cent loss."