00:00Sometimes your postcode can have a bigger impact on your health than your genetic code.
00:05Today across the world we are seeing a growing inequality and with that a rise in stress,
00:10a drop in education levels at times and life expectancy and an increase in violence.
00:15The solution to all that is already researched and available.
00:18All we need to do is to act.
00:20Well so says our guest today, a social epidemiologist, a detective if you like,
00:24that looks at why some people are healthier than others
00:26by examining not the disease itself or the body but where the person lives
00:30and the conditions of their neighbourhood, their society.
00:33Kate Pickett, welcome to the show.
00:34Your new book, The Good Society, is just coming out.
00:37It says we already have the knowledge, we have the solution to make the lives of most people far, far better
00:42but we're missing the action, we're not actually doing it.
00:46Can I start by asking you why we wouldn't do that?
00:50Well that's such a good question.
00:52We've known about the evidence on health inequalities, educational inequalities etc for a long time now
01:00but instead of seeing action on that, we've seen our societies overtaken by austerity, by pandemic,
01:09cost of living crisis etc.
01:11And it's a good question about why politics hasn't really shifted to focus on the root causes
01:18of the distress that we experience in society.
01:21And perhaps it is because the root cause, which is inequality, also increases political corruption,
01:29a lack of democracy, increases impunity,
01:35establishes the vested interests of the rich against the rich interests of the rest of us.
01:42Yeah, and the few that gain.
01:44But your book does go into, there are some examples of a good society, let's call it that,
01:49of where there's more equality in certain regions that exist in the world.
01:53Can you maybe give us a few examples of that?
01:57Sure.
01:58What I do is look across the world for places where good policies are happening,
02:03they're feasible, they're effective, they're making people's lives better.
02:06So, for instance, we can look at Finland and see that it's got an excellent education system,
02:12so we could borrow policies from there.
02:14We can look at Costa Rica, which does an excellent job of protecting its environment,
02:19or the very small Himalayan country of Bhutan, which focuses on increasing well-being rather
02:25than simply focusing on GDP.
02:28Those are just three of a whole smorgasbord of examples that we could use to put together
02:35the pieces and create a better society for ourselves.
02:39But as we were saying there, I mean, you say you can prove, Elon Musk, claim that empathy
02:43is the weakness of society.
02:44You can prove that definitively wrong.
02:47But the question is, how do we get the billionaires or those in power to accept coming down to that
02:53more equal level?
02:56Well, I think it's highly unlikely that they will accept.
02:59And so it's up to the rest of us to try and do something about that.
03:03And one of the things that I call for in my new book is for an increase in deliberative
03:08democracy, things like citizens' assembly and participatory budgeting, so that we could
03:14actually collectively choose the policies that we might want to create a better society.
03:19And that might include things like taxing wealth or implementing a universal basic income.
03:26So I don't think we can expect the billionaires to hand us those sorts of things on a platter,
03:30but we could put in place the sorts of processes and institutions that would allow all of us
03:36to have a voice in creating that good society.
03:39I have to say, one thing that struck me is perhaps how, as an average person, we may be
03:43unaware of the impact an unequal society has on us, especially if we are relatively well
03:50off.
03:50But when you read about the impact comparison society has on all of us, the amount of stress
03:56it leads to, maybe you could explain that to us.
04:01Sure.
04:01And of course, that's why I wrote the book, because it's no good if that evidence just
04:05sits in academic journals and is unknown by the public.
04:10But greater inequality creates higher levels of anxiety about status, higher levels of relative
04:18poverty, more problems of chronic stress.
04:21And so our physical and our mental health are affected every single day of our lives, whether
04:26or not we're aware of it.
04:28So just living in a more unequal society is living in a toxic environment.
04:33Indeed, it's another case, it feels, of where we're being controlled again by the consumerism
04:39and that capitalist society, you know, buying things to eke out, to be similar to the others.
04:44And also, I think of our technology and how that increasingly isolates us, I guess, in this world.
04:50Yeah, and I think you've put your finger on two very important things.
04:55One is the consumerism that's driven by inequality, which is bad for the planet, as well as for our
05:00own mental health and well-being, but also the ways in which inequality divides us from one another.
05:07And so we don't have the social connectedness that is so positive for health and well-being.
05:14So inequality is damaging us on so many different levels.
05:17The last time we saw maybe this very abrupt turn towards more solidarity, when we saw the NHS, you know,
05:25come to the fore in the United Kingdom, for example, was after the wars.
05:30I mean, will it take something like that to shock us into going back to more solidarity and equality?
05:35Well, the other time we've seen it, post-war, of course, was during the pandemic, when we saw a huge amount of solidarity,
05:45community activism and action and a great appreciation for our public servants, including the NHS.
05:53So I think crisis can do that.
05:56But let's not wait for more of a crisis before we take the action we need to create a better society.
06:01And before we leave you, can you tell us a little bit about the veil of ignorance again?
06:07Because I think that brings it home quite clearly, the whole premise of the book.
06:11Sure.
06:11The veil of ignorance is Rawls, the philosopher's game, if you will, where he said,
06:17try and imagine a society, try and create a society, design a society,
06:22when you don't know what your position in it would be.
06:25You wouldn't know whether you're going to be young or old, male or female, rich or poor, clever or not.
06:32You would not, in those conditions, design a society as unequal as the one we've got.
06:37You would probably, almost all of us, would design a society with more equality,
06:43with more fairness, with more justice,
06:45because we wouldn't know where we would be placed in that society.
06:49So I think it's a really useful exercise to help us think about the sort of society
06:54we would like to create for ourselves, our children and our grandchildren.
06:58Indeed. And once again, questioning why we compare so much and so harshly sometimes.
07:03Kate Pickett, we'll have to leave it there.
07:05But thanks so much for joining us here on France 24.
07:07The Good Society are being released now.
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