But it now looks like there is a third, and equally terrible, consequence of the vast and growing inequality of wealth and income -- a rise in violent crime. A scientific paper, printed in the prestigious publication Social Science and Medicine, and written by Ichiro Kawachi and Bruce P. Kennedy (both of the Harvard School of Public Health) and Richard G. Wilkinson (University of Sussex) shows that several violent crimes have a definite relationship with economic inequality. That means that as the economic inequality grows larger, there is a rise in the incidence of these crimes.
The researchers used crime data from many police organizations (including the FBI) to compare crime rates in states that have a large income inequality to states that have a lesser income inequalty. They found that violent crimes (like robbery, aggravated assault, and homicide) do correlate to the income equality in the states. The only violent crime that did not have a correlation is rape. The only non-violent crime with a fairly strong correlation is burglary. Here are the correlation numbers (note that homicide has the strongest correlation):
homicide...............0.74
aggravated assault...............0.50
burglary...............0.44
robbery...............0.36
rape...............0.13
Remember this when you go to the polls in November. The Republican policy of trickle-down economics is the prime cause of the vast income and wealth inequality in this country. And that inequality is not only causing serious damage to our economy and our political system, but it is also a prime cause of the high rates of violent crime.
Well, not having read the report I can't comment on it's accuracy, but it seems to be contradicted that in the past ten years, as income inequality has increased sharply, violent crime has steadily diminished across all categories and across the nation.
ReplyDeleteThe higher crime rates in states with higher inequality could be a number of factors having to do with tax rates providing support for state and local police, social programs, education... Related to the income inequality only peripheriplally, if at all.
We cannot rely on ivory tower studies to solve our problems, and income inequality is far from the biggest problem we have. If you cut the 10,000 highest incomes in this country to zero and put those 10,000 people on welfare, you would have solved precisely nothing. Another 20 million people would still not have jobs, and 50 million people would still have incomes too small to live on. Make it 100,000 people, make it 1 million top incomes cut to zero, and you still would have solved nothing, because you would have done nothing for 20 million unemployed and 50 underemployed.
Obama has come up with this distraction about "tax the rich" and income inequality to keep us from noticing that he has don nothing, is doing nothing, and will do nothing, to help the poor working slob who needs a job to feed his family. He is raking in and spending $1 billion to get reelected, and that money comes from the oligarchs he actually supports. When we are talking about income inequality we are playing Obama's distraction game of "blame the rich" rather than blaming our elected legislators of both parties.
1. I agree that both parties must share the blame, but I believe the GOP share is larger.
ReplyDelete2. Most of Obama's donations came from people giving less than $200.
3. I never said the answer was bankrupting any certain number of rich people, but rather instituting policies that will result in a fairer distribution of income (and higher taxes on the rich is only one of numerous policies that should be implemented).
4. Read the article (which I linked to). I believe they accounted for most or all of the other factors you mention.