SO478 - week 16
« Back to SO478These are my notes from February 06 for SO478 at the London School of Economics for the 2017-2018 school year. I took this module as part of the one-year Inequalities and Social Science MSc program.
The usual disclaimer: all notes are my personal impressions and do not necessarily reflect the view of the lecturer.
Health inequalities and policy
Aaron Reeves talking about health inequalities. My notes aren’t great, sorry. No notes from the readings.
Lecture
- talking about cholera
- mortality rates across europe
- what explains health disparities between countries
- relative position in income distribution affects mortality, not just the actual amount you earn
- (obvs, cus it controls what goods you have access to)
- incentives for ruling classes to contain public health lower cus they’re not really as integrated, more segregated
- otoh labour costs will rise if a bunch of people die lol
- why is health so much worse in the US
- food deserts where it’s really hard to get healthy food
- healthcare
- lifestyle choices (smoking, diet) but ofc look at structural factors too
- my thought: why are we so focused on mortality
- when it’s a spectrum, having to work long hours at a shitty minimum wage job and living in a shitty house and having to sit on public transit for two hours every day is pretty close to death but that’s normalised
- rel between income ineq and health depends on the level of income ineq (like second order) yeah no shit
- one of those lectures meant to convince ppl that things are bad, well im convinced
- preaching to the choir etc
- increasingly realising that this program isnt really a good fit for me (or im not a good fit for the program)
- on comparing health for diff income ineq levels when controlled for total income level
- my thought: it’s all relative cus it depends on labour power and shit and what money actually buys you
- plus health doesnt measure everything, mortality isnt the only important thing
- mental health??? alienation
- wilkinson focused on when countries are already at a high level of wealth, just looking at ineq levels AMONG those countries, focused on that very small subset
Seminar
- criticism of the spirit level (delusion, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/aug/26/response-spirit-level-bad-social-science)
- from what i’ve heard, the spirit level’s strategy was to put together a bunch of case studies to prove that inequality is also bad for rich people? a very particular case of the shifted baseline phenomenon
- i would critique it from the left but at least it moves overton window idk
- that 1980 report on healthcare shocked ppl cus national healthcare service etc
- my thought: what do people think income inequality is FOR if it doesnt negatively impact health
- like what is the purpose, what is being distributed?
- why dont i care about health in general
- because it’s not directly correlated to exploitation (ie systematised oppression) like smoking pollution diet etc
- the parts i care about are those tht are a direct result of capitalism/etc
- boiling down wilkinson pickett arg to its core, inequality per se is bad for you
- agreed cus labour-power
- but also cost of living
- and hiring people to shine shoes
- higher level problem: income inequality being important symptom of commodified, rampant capitalism and other systems of structural oppression
- why are people locked up? property crimes, or drug crimes