Whether it’s the police, military, TSA, ICE, or CBP, they all operate under the same banner of maintaining safety and security. This cultural meme has been propagated relentlessly with little regard for evidence. Take, for example, a concerning study done on the TSA which revealed that undercover agents were able to smuggle banned weapons and mock explosives through security 95 percent of the time. One could argue for stricter security measures as a solution, but the overall reality is that if someone is sufficiently determined enough to blow up or shoot up an airplane, they will find a way to do it.
These institutions listed above are predicated on aggression, intimidation, and fear to curb crime and maintain safety. However, these methods will never produce any long-term peace or stability because they fail to address the underlying roots of violence: socioeconomic inequality and its adverse effects. This isn’t the sole cause, but there’s an abundance of sociological research linking inequality to increases in violence, imprisonment, and drug use while decreasing mental health, educational performance, and social mobility.
I’m not claiming to have concrete solutions, nor am I suggesting that this would lead to a peaceful utopia. This is just an exercise to elucidate a general train of thought that incorporates a structuralist perspective to pursue a path towards a more peaceful society. First, it’s necessary to break down the process of violence which is the overarching issue when discussing safety or security.
Structural Violence
The word “act” that’s commonly used when describing a gruesome murder or mass shooting is actually a misnomer. The word ‘act’ in the phrase “an act of violence” implies that violence is a direct, behavioral action; this is simply untrue. Treating violence in this manner excludes any historical or socioeconomic factors. The truth is that violence is a multilayered process that can’t be nailed down to a singular cause. Any behavioral outcome, negative or positive, is a result of system assimilation, and trying to separate individual behavior from the environment is futile.
The realization of structural violence was first introduced to me by Dr. Paul Farmer who has done astounding work and provides a workable definition of the term:
“Structural violence is one way of describing social arrangements that put individuals and populations in harm’s way… The arrangements are structural because they are embedded in the political and economic organization of our social world; they are violent because they cause injury to people … neither culture nor pure individual will is at fault; rather, historically given (and often economically driven) processes and forces conspire to constrain individual agency. Structural violence is visited upon all those whose social status denies them access to the fruits of scientific and social progress.”
An important detail that I would personally add to this definition is that structural violence operates under a scientific reality where most basic human needs can be met. In other words, they’re almost entirely preventable if our social system were tweaked to promote better public health. A good illustration of preventable suffering is the absurd prevalence of food waste in the United States.
In 2015, 42.2 million Americans lived in food insecure households which are defined as households having inadequate physical, social or economic access to nutritious food. Meanwhile, around 30-40% of the U.S. food supply is thrown away according to the USDA; this amounts to $160 billion worth of food. This problem is preventable partly because the arbitrary expiration dates, bulk packaging, and outright deliberate throwing away of food motivated by risible market logic is unnecessary. We already produce more than enough food for the entire population; the real issue here is poverty and degradation, not scarcity.
As an aside, we can easily grow enough food to feed the 7.2 billion people in the world by utilizing vertical farms. It’d take about 144,000 thirty-story structures to accomplish while only using 0.006% of the Earth’s land (we currently use 11%) and 95% less water than conventional methods. Simply ending hunger and food insecurity will have a profound boost in public health, especially for children. This would lower hospitalizations, chronic health conditions, behavioral problems and pregnancy complications just to name a few.
More personal, 1-on-1 violence has structuralist roots as well; Dr. James Gilligan, former director of the Center for the Study of Violence at Harvard Medical School, is an excellent source for this subject. His 1997 book ‘Violence: Reflections on a National Epidemic’ is a brilliant piece of writing where he describes his experiences as a prison psychiatrist.
Right from the onset, he seems to detest anyone using moralized language when describing the cause of violence. For example, using religious notions of “good and evil” when depicting a murderer is distracting and unhelpful. I think Dr. Gilligan summarized it well on p.92-93 of his book:
“I am suggesting that the only way to explain the causes of violence, so that we can learn how to prevent it, is to approach violence as a problem in public health and preventive medicine, and to think of violence as a symptom of life-threatening (and often lethal) pathology, which, like all forms of illness, has an etiology or cause, a pathogen. To think of violence as evil–if we confuse that value judgement about violence with an explanation of it– can only confuse us into thinking that we have an explanation when we do not.”
It is evident, at least in the context of the United States, that we are nowhere close to addressing the current problem of violence in a systemic way. Once someone is arrested for a violent act (and non-violent acts in regards to drug arrests) in the U.S., an inflexible “justice” system takes charge that’s incapable of minimizing recidivism when compared to other countries. This punitive mindset treats prisoners as a group incapable of rehabilitation. Meanwhile, in Norway, a study revealed that rehabilitation and job-training programs in the countries prison system was essential to reducing the pattern of criminal behavior in an individual. When you change the social environment from negative to positive, *most* will respond by improving their lives accordingly. Who would’ve guessed?!
Violence Is Natural?
As a final point of emphasis, I want briefly address the belief that violence is intrinsic to our species. Many people believe that humans have natural propensities for violent acts and cut-throat competition. If this is true, then there would be little point in trying to reduce violence since it’s ostensibly instinctive. Fortunately, the evidence suggests a different story. You shouldn’t separate an individual’s actions from the social environment in which they’re oriented. Dr. Gilligan highlights the dangers with this kind of thinking on p.212 of his book:
“If the assumption is that violence is an inextricable part of our inborn ‘human nature’, then clearly the only way to keep the problem under control is to emphasize just that: control, meaning the control of some people (whose violence is ‘bad’) by other people (whose violence is ‘good’).”
This dichotomy of “good vs. bad” with uses of violence is exactly how the police, military, TSA, ICE, and CBP vindicate their methods. Their perpetuation of violence is seen as a positive because they’re eradicating something they deem as dangerous: this could be called a cyclical circle of violence. Ideally, we should view every arrest by these institutions as a failure of the system; “the system” that I’m referring to here is the Prison Industrial Complex (PIC). The PIC is an overarching term used to describe confluence between government and private industry that use invasive, punitive techniques as solutions to social and economic problems. The reality is that our environment heavily shapes our behavior; thus we should all feel a sense of mutual responsibility.
Violence, for most of us, isn’t intertwined with our biology. We actually have a propensity for compassion (partially motivated by the lovely hormone oxytocin), and that reality is moderately exemplified by Rhesus monkeys. A 1964 study at Northwestern University led by psychiatrist Jules Masserman reported that Rhesus monkeys would literally starve themselves after they found out that pulling a chain that gave them food also gave a shock to a companion (The Compassionate Instinct, p.18).
Overall, most violent “acts” are multi-faceted and cannot be pinned down to any single cause. Ignoring negative social pressures (i.e. poverty, inequality) that push individuals towards certain destructive behaviors is a truncated point-of-view and will always lead to unhelpful individualized associations of violence which help sustain the cyclical circle of violence.
Greater Equality Promotes Peace
Allow me to lay out the truth succinctly: socioeconomic equality produces a safer, healthier, stronger and more sustainable society. This assertion isn’t just a feel-good bromide, it’s supported by mountains of evidence which is unraveled by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett in their book ‘The Spirit Level.’ Their research shows how unequal societies generally produce greater violence while also diminishing public health through various forms. The rest of this post will be showcasing the important charts in the book with subsequent explanations and corroborating evidence.
Poverty vs. Inequality
It’s important to explain the difference between poverty and inequality. Health and social problems cannot be wholly attributed to levels of income; the degree of inequality makes a profound difference.
All of the charts I will share that display international comparisons are using the 20:20 ratio measure of income inequality from the United Nations Human Development Index. All of the state comparisons are using the Gini Index. The statistics are all gathered from the World Bank, World Health Organization, the United Nations and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development–all of which are reputable sources.
Overall, public health is better in more equal countries. A statistical scatter like this cannot be explained away by chance or coincidence. Let’s see how this compares to overall income.
The correlation here is tenuous and doesn’t exhibit a consistent trend like the previous chart on inequality. This is because wealth isn’t necessarily linked to improved living conditions. How do U.S. states compare?
While it’s a little less obvious than the country comparison, the trend within the states is still the same. Now let’s look at incomes per state.
A Brief Digression on Costa Rica
So why is poverty only weakly related (in rich countries) to health and social problems? It’s hard to pin down to a simple answer, but let’s take Costa Rica as an example. This is a deviation from the The Spirit Levels’ methods because Costa Rica doesn’t file under a “rich country” with a GDP of only $79 billion. However, I think the results when compared to the United States are worth taking into consideration.
It might come as a shock to many that the poorest Costa Ricans have a longer, healthier life than the poorest Americans. This conclusion is from Luis Rosero-Bixbya from the Universidad de Costa Rica and William H. Dow from the University of California, Berkeley. The findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. Why is this?
It can’t be from income inequality seeing as Costa Rica has a Gini Index of 0.52 compared to the U.S. at 0.40. However, the inequality in health care within the U.S. is much higher. Costa Rica has lifetime universal health insurance and a strong social safety net for their residents under 65. Their healthcare system still struggles to help people with specialized care needs, and their inability to mitigate hypertension looks unfavorable when compared to the U.S. Regardless, the overall reality remains the same: poor Americans under 65 would be better off living in Costa Rica.
Structural Violence in Healthcare
I would argue that the first thing to consider when trying to reduce violence of all kind is healthcare. Without a stable, equitable system, the poorest individuals will become further saddled into debt which results in a downward spiral of desperation for the people. Desperation from this already debt-fueled economy leads to higher diastolic blood pressure, increases in depression and worse general health. This connection desperately needs to be acknowledged and contemplated by everyone, especially the representatives in Congress. America, for ideological reasons, chooses not to adopt a universal system that covers everyone even though it’d be more efficient. Our current system (assuming the AHCA is passed) will exacerbate income inequality and push a higher cost burden onto low-income citizens. The American healthcare system is a form of violence when taking this structural perspective.
Going back to The Spirit Level, the American system listed above that punishes the most desperate populations leads itself to a host of other adverse health effects. Let’s start with mental illness.
The countries here line up almost perfectly with the only outlier being Italy. The authors say that anxiety disorders, impulse-control disorders, and severe illness are all strongly correlated with inequality while mood disorders are weakly correlated (p.68). So why is mental illness higher in more unequal societies?
Some might attribute it to cultural affluenza where people’s only perception of social prestige is the amount of money one earns; this can lead to vulnerability to emotional distress. Economist Robert H. Frank coined the term ‘luxury fever’ which he describes as “luxury consumption in Western industrialized countries has been rising at an astronomical rate even though recent psychological research shows that there is a scant correlation between this consumption and levels of stated life satisfaction.” This behavior is more widely observed in unequal countries.
Drug Use
The use of drugs isn’t inherently a negative thing, but the higher use of more potent drugs like cocaine and amphetamines have profound impacts brain activity. These create severe imbalances in dopamine and serotonin; low dopamine and serotonin levels have been linked to depression and various other mental disorders (TSL, p.71).
We also have to look at this from a societal point-of-view as well. As mentioned prior, vast numbers of people are in federal prison for non-violent drug offenses. So not only does America have a high rate of drug use partially caused by inequality, but we also throw them in prison and, once released, deny them opportunities to get ahead mostly via discrimination. The cycle continues.
This post is becoming pretty verbose, and anyone making it this far can see the main idea that I’m delineating. There are many more categories: obesity, educational performance, teenage births, social mobility and social relations just to name a few. I encourage everyone to read the book for themselves, but overall, all of these are worse in more unequal countries. I wanted to start with health and social problems first because together they compound the problem of overall violence. Let’s look at one final category before I conclude and bring this all together: homicides.
These rates are from the United Nations Surveys on Crime Trends and the Operations of Criminal Justice Systems. The trend is similar in U.S. states.
What are the reasons for this? Some propose that this may begin in childhood, to quote James Gilligan once again in talking about the violent men in prisons he worked with:
“They had been subjected to a degree of child abuse that was off the scale of anything I had previously thought of describing with that term. Many had been beaten nearly to death, raped repeatedly or prostituted, or neglected to a life-threatening degree by parents too disabled to care for their child. And of those who had not experienced these extremes of physical abuse or neglect, my colleagues and I found that they had experienced a degree of emotional abuse that had been just as damaging . . . in which they served as the scapegoat for whatever feelings of shame and humiliation their parents had suffered and then attempted to rid themselves of by transferring them onto their child, by subjecting him to systemic and chronic shaming and humiliation, taunting and ridicule.” (TSL, p.138)
One again, this violent behavior is structural through numerous factors over many years. But even this cannot explain fully why unequal societies have such high rates of homicides. All we know is that the overall trend is there and reversing inequality will certainly help.
Reducing Inequality
Now that a basic framework of the problems and a possible solution is established, what next? Pursuing a more egalitarian society is becoming increasingly necessary at this point in time. One small, obvious solution that mostly involves government intervention is ending low wages (which cost taxpayers about $152 billion/year) via raising the minimum wage to a living wage.
This isn’t a blanket $15/hr proposal that politicians incessantly rave about, but a calculated cost-of-living analysis that quantifies the number necessary on a county-by-county basis; MIT’s calculator is an excellent resource here. People who make the argument that you can’t quantify a living wage because you can’t account for the price of goods are partially correct. However, they drastically underestimate our ability to measure these sorts of factors nowadays.
For example, Purdue University has an online calculator where you punch in your businesses zip code and the proposed minimum wage hike, it will then give a report on what that particular number means for managers of fast-food restaurants. Overall, they found that a blanket $15/hr minimum wage increase would result in a 4.3% increase in the price of food at these ‘limited-service’ restaurants. As nice as this sounds, a living wage doesn’t address enough because meeting the bare minimum for living standards still produces anxiety among those populations. Other solutions involve incorporating a more progressive tax system while ending tax loopholes which would certainly help, but it’s a band-aid.
We need to focus less on the moral and ideological objections to policy and more on the mere fact of getting it done. For instance, a Universal Basic Income would be much more effective than trying to manipulate wages. I’ll quote a passage from one of my previous posts regarding a UBI.
A precursory step towards technical efficiency would be embracing and implementing the idea of a Universal Basic Income (UBI) which has a simple definition: a guaranteed income to every citizen with no work requirement or any other sort of test. I view UBI as more of a future inevitability rather than a pie-in-the-sky social or moral justice theory. This is because of the nearing technological unemployment phenomenon that will slowly engulf the menial, mechanical jobs. A 2013 study by Oxford researches concluded that around 45% of American jobs are under threat of automation in the next 20 years. Although data is sparse on UBI, we do have a few examples of it being implemented. Medicine Hat, a small city in Canada with a population of 60,000 (2011 census), decided to give the residents a UBI. They managed to house 885 of the cities 1,000 homeless people. This housing also saved an estimated $65,000/person in annual care costs according to Human Services in Alberta, Canada. This is because simply providing free housing/free money lessens the health impact these homeless people endure, thus alleviating some of the financial burden on the healthcare system. The simple reality is that just giving people money and a house with little questions asked is cheaper than leaving them on the streets.
This is the train of thought we need to pursue as a society if we’re ever going to lessen income inequality and mitigate violence. If these issues of inequality are addressed, the need for forceful institutions like the police will be drastically less needed and, ideally, eliminated. However, if we keep walking down the path we’re currently on, our public health problems will only get worse and may eventually lead to a major social collapse.
yet another blog 