The rioting in London seems like a fitting backdrop for reviewing a book about societal inequality, although the timing of my review, and their riots, is purely coincidental. In “The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better” we are exposed to a compelling stream of data and analysis that aims to show that whether you care about health, or crime, or education, or social mobility, (or…), you should be caring about social and economic inequality.

We are social animals and our position in the community hierarchy, or our social status, affects how we feel and behave. Generally, the lower down we are in the pecking order, the worse off we are. But if that pecking order, or ‘social gradient’, is particularly steep, everyone fares worse, even those at the top.

Wherever we stand on the ladder, we continuously signal our status to others. This is stressful work, as we tend to look up, not down. We consume conspicuously, sometimes beyond our means, in order to maintain the appearance of status. We want to keep up with the Joneses. It’s human nature, but in more unequal societies, it’s much more costly.

The authors claim that we have reached a plateau where increasing income no longer adds much to wellbeing. We would all gain more if the pie were more evenly distributed, rather than by growing a bigger pie. This is an argument that falls well into ideological territory, although The Spirit Level goes to pains to avoid saying that the solution is simply income redistribution through taxation.

Why, for example, is Japan the most equal of all nations, and yet has one of the smallest social welfare systems? How can we achieve more equality in pre-tax incomes? The authors suggest a solution: increased employee ownership. The details of employee ownership and stock plans can be complex, and it struck me as a rather specific solution for a rather general problem. If you were to scale employee ownership up to an entire society, how would that be different from communism?

In the past few years I have made a concerted effort to understand and appreciate more conservative economic analysis, with its emphasis on growth. I can appreciate that markets can be efficient (except when they fail) allocators of scarce resources. I understand how specialization and trade increase wealth. Economic growth (i.e. increased productivity) can be credited for lifting many of the world’s poor out of poverty.

But in rich developed nations those gains have diminishing effects. iPads and plasma televisions do not make us healthier, or reduce crime. As status symbols, they might even contribute to the problem.

The Spirit Level reminds me that in a world of growing pies, growth itself may not be sufficient to meet all our needs. Humans need status. It profoundly affects our sense of self, our relationships, and our work. But status is a game that we play, not a good that can be redistributed. The rules of this game are encoded in our DNA, but also in our culture. We need game-changing strategies.

By the end of the book, I had a clearer sense of the problem, but was less certain of solutions. The UK is one of the world’s most unequal countries that, in the wake of riots, will have a rare opportunity for collective soul-searching. Maybe they will blame the violence on criminal thuggery and leave it at that. Or maybe they will dig deeper and see inequality as a contributing factor, beginning a journey, undefined and unmarked, to...well... the Spirit Level.