Inequality is bad for the soul

Nicholas Kristof makes the case that inequality of economic status eats at the soul.  The grinding away of the American dream as the rich get richer and the poor get poorer and the middle class shrinks away causes poor health, both physically and mentally.  I think we have always known that, the war on poverty was about that, but then the issue got highjacked by what I guess I would call Calvinism, the belief that the rich are rich because they are better than the rest of us. John Steinbeck observed that "a sad soul can kill you quicker, far quicker, than a germ."

There's growing evidence that the toll of our stunning inequality is not just economic but also is a melancholy of the soul. The upshot appears to be high rates of violent crime, high narcotics use, high teenage birthrates and even high rates of heart disease.That's the argument of an important book by two distinguished British epidemiologists, Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett. They argue that gross inequality tears at the human psyche, creating anxiety, distrust and an array of mental and physical ailments - and they cite mountains of data to support their argument. Meanwhile, our planet gets sick as well.  I keep wondering what is the string to pull that unravels this nasty knot, and keep coming back to getting the money out of campaigns.  But even if that is the answer, can we mobilize a large enough movement to get it done?