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According to Stephen Pinker, the correlation between inequality and violence is weak. It really surprised me, because I always assumed that they’d be linked.

tom_mellior 8y ago
If anything, as hinted above, there are lots of other confounding factors. Also, Wikipedia's wealth inequality list looks a lot less similar to murder rates than the income inequality list I posted above. Would you know off the top of your head if Pinker wrote about wealth or about income inequality? (Or yet another measure?)
- oxymoron 8y ago
  I looked it up, since I got downvoted (see sibling comment). Since he’s talking about the Gini coeffecient, I’d presume he’s referring to income inequality, although it’s not explicit.
  - tom_mellior 8y ago
    Right, thanks for the quote. The Gini coefficent is applicable both to income and to wealth inequality, so that doesn't answer the question. (Not your fault, of course.)
rhcom2 8y ago
That seems controversial considering all the people who found the opposite. https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/003465300559028#.VEa2xNTF9D5 https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/00346530055...
- oxymoron 8y ago
  Quoting from _Better angels of our nature_ p119: ”Among economic measures, inequality is generally a better predictor of violence than unemployment. But The Gini coefficient, the standard index of inequality, actually rose in the United States from 1990 to 2000, while crime was fallinh, and it had hit its low point in 1968, when crime was soaring. The problem with invoking inequality to explain changes in violence is that while it correlates with violence across states and countries, it does not correlate with violence over time within a state or country, possibly because the real cause of the differences is not inequality per se but stable features of a state’s governance or culture that affect both inequality and violence. (For example, in unequal societies, poor neighbourhoods are left without police protection and can become zones of violent anarchy.)
  - rhcom2 8y ago
    Thanks, very interesting.
lumberjack 8y ago
According to the data it is very strong. There are only few countries where there is both high economic inequality and low incidence of crime, and those countries are full blown dictatorships like North Korea.

tom_mellior 8y ago

If anything, as hinted above, there are lots of other confounding factors. Also, Wikipedia's wealth inequality list looks a lot less similar to murder rates than the income inequality list I posted above. Would you know off the top of your head if Pinker wrote about wealth or about income inequality? (Or yet another measure?)

oxymoron 8y ago
I looked it up, since I got downvoted (see sibling comment). Since he’s talking about the Gini coeffecient, I’d presume he’s referring to income inequality, although it’s not explicit.
- tom_mellior 8y ago
  Right, thanks for the quote. The Gini coefficent is applicable both to income and to wealth inequality, so that doesn't answer the question. (Not your fault, of course.)

rhcom2 8y ago

That seems controversial considering all the people who found the opposite. https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/003465300559028#.VEa2xNTF9D5 https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/00346530055...

oxymoron 8y ago
Quoting from _Better angels of our nature_ p119: ”Among economic measures, inequality is generally a better predictor of violence than unemployment. But The Gini coefficient, the standard index of inequality, actually rose in the United States from 1990 to 2000, while crime was fallinh, and it had hit its low point in 1968, when crime was soaring. The problem with invoking inequality to explain changes in violence is that while it correlates with violence across states and countries, it does not correlate with violence over time within a state or country, possibly because the real cause of the differences is not inequality per se but stable features of a state’s governance or culture that affect both inequality and violence. (For example, in unequal societies, poor neighbourhoods are left without police protection and can become zones of violent anarchy.)
- rhcom2 8y ago
  Thanks, very interesting.

lumberjack 8y ago

According to the data it is very strong. There are only few countries where there is both high economic inequality and low incidence of crime, and those countries are full blown dictatorships like North Korea.