Quoting from _Better angels of our nature_ p119: ”Among economic measures, inequality is generally a better predictor of violence than unemployment. But The Gi

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.)