On Sunday’s Philosophy in Action Radio, Greg and I will answer the following question on social effects of economic inequality.

Is an egalitarian society a better society? The 2009 book “The Spirit Level” by Richard Wilkinson argues that income inequality has a broad range of negative effects on society. According to the summary on Wikipedia, “It claims that for each of eleven different health and social problems: physical health, mental health, drug abuse, education, imprisonment, obesity, social mobility, trust and community life, violence, teenage pregnancies, and child well-being, outcomes are significantly worse in more unequal rich countries.” Are these egalitarian arguments wrong? If so, what’s the best approach to refuting them?

These arguments are more philosophically interesting than I expected, as they’re basically an empirical version of Rawlsian egalitarianism. The statistics are also more compelling than I imagined at the outset: apparently, even wealthy people are better off in societies with less disparity between incomes.

If you’d like to familiarize yourself with these arguments before Sunday’s broadcast, check out this TED talk by the author of The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger, Richard Wilkinson:

This episode of internet radio airs at 8 am PT / 9 MT / 10 CT / 11 ET on Sunday, 20 October 2013, in our live studio. If you miss that live broadcast, you can always listen to the podcast later.