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When the rich get richer
culturelab
When the rich get richer Will a powerful documentary about inequality hit home, asks Michael Bond they don’t want to be bothered by community alike. But at least she’s free. Number six is in jail for riff-raff who might threaten their security or complacency. They can 25 years after he was caught with never have enough gates. 1.5 grams of “dope”, a victim of California’s three-strikes law. At This is what makes inequality the other end of the spectrum, so hard to dismantle: the people though she doesn’t seem to realise who benefit most are insulated it, a new resident of an upscale from those who suffer, and so feel gated community in Sacramento no wish to change anything. And worries that her neighbours won’t because the people who benefit talk to her because they consider are usually those with the most her “too poor”. The Sacramento outcast is one “Noam Chomsky points out the rich can run to the of the most startling examples of nanny state if institutions – the film’s real story: social division. Describing how the notably banks – crash” residents are pushing for a second security gate, she asks: why do we influence, nothing changes. As need it? There are guards on the Piff says, despite their hard work, first gate, and half have guns. most people aren’t achieving Psychologist Paul Piff, one of the American dream. So who is? the film’s talking heads, draws Often those born into wealth. on studies by his team to explain This message gets a typically this. They show people become iconoclastic screen endorsement less empathic as they grow richer. from Noam Chomsky, who argues They prioritise their own interests that the rich – contrary to their and pay less attention to others, free-market or libertarian because they can afford to. As the sentiments – are protected by the rich become more self-interested, nanny state: they can run to it if
IN THE US, the richest 0.1 per cent of people own roughly the same as the bottom 90 per cent; in the UK, the 1000 richest are wealthier than the poorest 40 per cent. On both sides of the Atlantic, inequality is at its highest level since 1928. Surprisingly, these are about the only statistics in Katharine Round’s film The Divide. You would expect more, seeing as it was inspired by the 2009 book The Spirit Level, a graph-heavy manifesto linking wealth and social outcomes by epidemiologists Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett. Instead, Round dwells on the human story behind the numbers, and tells it very effectively. The film follows seven people in the UK and the US as it explores what happens to everyone when the rich get richer. We meet a Wall Street psychologist desperate to be part of “the 1 per cent” (at least of psychologists), and who aspires to own a second home in Florida. Then there’s a homeless Glaswegian rapper who just aspires to stay sober, a KFC worker in Virginia worried about the “pure rage” felt by some towards those with more, and a Walmart employee who is struggling to keep her home. She has no problem with businesses making a profit, so long as they don’t do it at the expense of their staff (which, in her case, they do). The fifth story is of a carer in Newcastle who feels under appreciated by employers and Three strikes out: living with major inequality may cause a raft of ills 46 | NewScientist | 16 April 2016
“Still from The Divide, courtesy of Dartmouth Films/Literally Films”
The Divide directed by Katharine Round, released in the UK on 22 April
institutions, notably banks, crash. In other words, the system is rigged in their favour. There are bad apples, but the real problem is the rotten barrel. As well as being insightful, the film is a fascinating social portrait. Cynics may grumble that it lacks a theoretical arc, in that it is hard to unpick cause from effect. The stories depict poverty, stress, debt, addiction, homelessness, anxiety, frustration, injustice, violence, crime: are we meant to conclude this is all due to inequality? Round doesn’t say, though there is plenty of evidence, gathered largely by Wilkinson and Pickett, that social ills ascribed to poverty in fact derive from the stress of living in a society where the haves have so much more than the have-nots. Round is hoping her stories will be “a powerful wake-up call to those who believe that economics has no bearing on the way we live”. Such success will depend on who is watching, how open they are – and, no doubt, how rich. n
When the rich get richer Will a powerful documentary about inequality hit home, asks Michael Bond they don’t want to be bothered by community alike. But at least she’s free. Number six is in jail for riff-raff who might threaten their security or complacency. They can 25 years after he was caught with never have enough gates. 1.5 grams of “dope”, a victim of California’s three-strikes law. At This is what makes inequality the other end of the spectrum, so hard to dismantle: the people though she doesn’t seem to realise who benefit most are insulated it, a new resident of an upscale from those who suffer, and so feel gated community in Sacramento no wish to change anything. And worries that her neighbours won’t because the people who benefit talk to her because they consider are usually those with the most her “too poor”. The Sacramento outcast is one “Noam Chomsky points out the rich can run to the of the most startling examples of nanny state if institutions – the film’s real story: social division. Describing how the notably banks – crash” residents are pushing for a second security gate, she asks: why do we influence, nothing changes. As need it? There are guards on the Piff says, despite their hard work, first gate, and half have guns. most people aren’t achieving Psychologist Paul Piff, one of the American dream. So who is? the film’s talking heads, draws Often those born into wealth. on studies by his team to explain This message gets a typically this. They show people become iconoclastic screen endorsement less empathic as they grow richer. from Noam Chomsky, who argues They prioritise their own interests that the rich – contrary to their and pay less attention to others, free-market or libertarian because they can afford to. As the sentiments – are protected by the rich become more self-interested, nanny state: they can run to it if
IN THE US, the richest 0.1 per cent of people own roughly the same as the bottom 90 per cent; in the UK, the 1000 richest are wealthier than the poorest 40 per cent. On both sides of the Atlantic, inequality is at its highest level since 1928. Surprisingly, these are about the only statistics in Katharine Round’s film The Divide. You would expect more, seeing as it was inspired by the 2009 book The Spirit Level, a graph-heavy manifesto linking wealth and social outcomes by epidemiologists Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett. Instead, Round dwells on the human story behind the numbers, and tells it very effectively. The film follows seven people in the UK and the US as it explores what happens to everyone when the rich get richer. We meet a Wall Street psychologist desperate to be part of “the 1 per cent” (at least of psychologists), and who aspires to own a second home in Florida. Then there’s a homeless Glaswegian rapper who just aspires to stay sober, a KFC worker in Virginia worried about the “pure rage” felt by some towards those with more, and a Walmart employee who is struggling to keep her home. She has no problem with businesses making a profit, so long as they don’t do it at the expense of their staff (which, in her case, they do). The fifth story is of a carer in Newcastle who feels under appreciated by employers and Three strikes out: living with major inequality may cause a raft of ills 46 | NewScientist | 16 April 2016
“Still from The Divide, courtesy of Dartmouth Films/Literally Films”
The Divide directed by Katharine Round, released in the UK on 22 April
institutions, notably banks, crash. In other words, the system is rigged in their favour. There are bad apples, but the real problem is the rotten barrel. As well as being insightful, the film is a fascinating social portrait. Cynics may grumble that it lacks a theoretical arc, in that it is hard to unpick cause from effect. The stories depict poverty, stress, debt, addiction, homelessness, anxiety, frustration, injustice, violence, crime: are we meant to conclude this is all due to inequality? Round doesn’t say, though there is plenty of evidence, gathered largely by Wilkinson and Pickett, that social ills ascribed to poverty in fact derive from the stress of living in a society where the haves have so much more than the have-nots. Round is hoping her stories will be “a powerful wake-up call to those who believe that economics has no bearing on the way we live”. Such success will depend on who is watching, how open they are – and, no doubt, how rich. n