Tonight’s Salter Lecture

Twitter Friends of mine will know that I arrived a day late at the table. It took me some time to orientate myself, and understand some of the complexities of YMG09. The rest will no doubt follow in good time. Still, like the labourers in the vineyard, in the book of Matthew, I hope to receive spiritual gifts regardless of my time of arrival.

The Salter Lecture was brought to my attention by Friends whom I had dinner and chat, so I decided to make this my point of entry to Yearly Meeting activity. It was a good choice. The Lecture was given by Richard Wilkinson, co-author (with Kate Pickett) of The Spirit Level. I found Richard’s talk to be totally compelling, despite the uncomfortable seating in the main hall. His evidence on inequality and its affect on the quality of all our lives made great sense. I found it very moving, as well. Richard’s delivery was gentle and humane, yet the evidence against the USA, Portugal and the UK, at the top of the inequality table, was damning. What moved me was that the things we have always said are right and good, such as equality, fairness and justice, have now been shown by research to actually make a difference to the quality of life of everyone in a given society, whether they are richer or poorer. More unequal societies – countries where there is the greatest difference in wealth between the richest and the poorest people – have the worst social problems. Things such as infant mortality, life expectancy, drug dependence, mental ill-health and obesity were shown to correlate with inequality of income.

This is the first time that I have heard convincing arguments about the negative effect of Thatcherite policies on British society. In my view it is also shows up the faultline which runs through the New Labour project, which has always sought to emulate Thatcher in delivering greater capitalist growth. Growth, said Richard Wilkinson, is precisely the problem. We need instead to foment a different kind of growth – growth of the co-operative sector. We should invest our time, energy and, yes, our income, in enterprise that goes against the capitalist project of greater growth. Local credit units and co-ops, for example. Consumerism breeds competitiveness as well as well as resentment, builds up the deficit of equality, and thereby sets up the prime conditions for violence, crime and mental ill-health.

Most interesting to me, working as I do as a counsellor in GP practices, was hearing from Richard that feeling judged or looked down upon is what aggravates depression and anxiety – these are the two main causes of mental ill-health which bring so many people to my consulting rooms in south east London. It isn’t surprising, in the conditions in which many people live, that they are depressed. But stress is made worse by knowing that others have better living conditions and more of the expensive consumer goods that are said to be necessary to happiness.

To counter the competitiveness and rivalry, we need to learn to be better at co-operating, better at relationship with one another, at loving and caring for one another. The good news is that these are all human qualities which are just as real as the need to compete. They are also the qualities which are urged upon us by the same gospels which I referenced earlier. Jesus said, “Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”

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