Inequality – Why it Happens, How we Combat it and its Socially Corrosive Effects

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(Free-Press-Release.com) September 15, 2010 --

If we are to move forward and reduce child poverty, let alone maintain a record we can be proud of Government need to be actively promoting and developing policy that is beneficial and works nationally, regionally and more crucially at a local level. Short term measures and quick fixes simply aren’t enough anymore as we are now reaping the benefit of years of neglect which in turn have resulted in unprecedented crime, a decline in respect, an increase in distrust, an increased burden on the state for benefits, numerous health issues and a lowering of the average life expectancy, all of which are symptoms of the greater divide been the richest and poorest in our society.

Conversely high quality policy could have far reaching implications to our economy, obvious benefits would be developing well balanced, highly educated and motivated individuals that have the tools to transform our country in the future, although one that isn’t purely interested in economic prosperity, but is equally interested in creating a happier place to live.

Conclusion

Any Governments whose primary focus is economic prosperity will experience greater social inequality, which demonstrates itself in many ways, one of which being child poverty! In nations like the US and UK where the gap between the richest and poorest is wider (and where social problems are more severe) we see a tendency towards status competition and it is this that drives consumerism, so you can see why politicians like inequality. And so what we see is a reluctance of ALL politicians (past, present and probably future) to combat the divide because of the implications it may have on a countries economy (which as we all know is the predominant factor on which they are judged upon), it’s simply a risk no politician is willing to take!

The main issue for me is that Government deal with the Equality groups rather than the root cause of the inequality. For example they have created an Equality act that deals far ranging issues such as how disabled people should be treated in society and have created an Equality Commission that advises them on related issues. What they have not done is given the individuals covered by this legislation the tools to deal with inequality when they experience it. Access to the Court system is virtually impossible for disabled people both financially, geographically and physically and so many injustices continue and ultimately means that this legislation is not fit for purpose.

What I find quite alarming is that the UK Government (past and present) are aware of this and in spite of this knowledge the rich/poor divide remains higher now (as does inequality) than it ever has, indeed my findings seem to indicate that successive Governments (including socialist parties) seem to want the divide, of course they will complain about it and talk about how socially corrosive it is, but ultimately they do nothing to stop it and continue to create policies that contribute to it!

The stark reality is that even after thirteen years of a Socialist Government the rich/poor gap has increased, this is not taking away any of progress that was made, undoubtedly much was done to bring children out of poverty, investing in public services was an attempt at redistributing wealth as was the introduction of the minimum wage, so why didn’t any of these measures work?

They didn’t work for one reason, ignorance of the facts! The facts being that to tackle inequality you need to place constraints on the top earners as much as you need to redistribute funds to the bottom earners, this is something Labour did not do and why the enormous contribution they made no difference at all.

If all of this can be proved very simply it is by one fact alone. We can identify Governments short comings and their unwillingness to deal with the real issue by looking at the legislation they introduce. All legislation will have this one clear common denominator! Government will focus ONLY on improvements that can be made to poor people in society and there is never any mention of curbing the rich! Take a look at the section above entitled ”The Building Blocks” (in full version of the research) and you’ll see that yourself.

If you found this article interesting there are a number of organisations involved in campaigning for equality in Britain, these are:

* The Equality Trust
* The One Society
* Robin Hood Tax

More information can be found online at http://legalx.wordpress.com/2010/09/14/inequality-–-why-it-happens-how-we-combat-it-and-its-socially-corrosive-effects/

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