Teribus, I wouldn't see the Pol Pot model as equality, I'd see it as dictatorship which pits ordinary people against each other. I'm talking more about the effects written about in The Spirit Level by two epidemiologists, Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett. They used the kind of data mining normally used in studying epidemics to come to the conclusion that a series of social factors (including health, mental health, drug use, education, imprisonment levels, obesity, social mobility, mutual trust, community life, violence, teenage pregnancies and child well-being) are significantly worse in more unequal countries, whether the countries are rich or poor. Wilkinson and Pickett (whom I always want to call Wilson Pickett) write that in unequal countries, even the relatively rich are affected by the stress, violence, bad health services, etc. As I say, I wouldn't see Pol Pot (or the Soviet model, or China) as equal; all of these were riddled with corruption and unjust advantage. I'm talking more about the northern European model, the Scandinavian countries, France, the Netherlands, etc; even Britain in the years before Thatcher, and the United States to an extent in the years when an ordinary working family could have ample food, a cheap home, a car, and job security and good state-provided education. All gone now, of course.
|