Free The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger by Richard Wilkinson, Kate Pickett Page A

other. As de Tocqueville pointed out, we are less likely to empathize with those not seen as equals; material differences serve to divide us socially.
    TRUST MATTERS

    Both Putnam and Uslaner make the point that trust leads to cooperation. Uslaner shows that, in the USA, people who trust others are more likely to donate time and money to helping other people. ‘Trusters’ also tend to believe in a common culture, that America is held together by shared values, that everybody should be treated with respect and tolerance. They are also supportive of the legal order.
    Trust affects the wellbeing of individuals, as well as the wellbeing of civic society. High levels of trust mean that people feel secure, they have less to worry about, they see others as co-operative rather than competitive. A number of convincing studies in the USA have linked trust to health – people with high levels of trust live longer. 29 In fact, people who trust others benefit from living in communities with generally high levels of trust, whereas people who are less trusting of others fare worse in such neighbourhoods. 30
    Trust, or lack of it, meant the difference between life and death for some people caught up in the chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Trust was also crucial for survival in the Chicago heatwave of 1995. Sociologist Eric Klinenberg, in his book about the heatwave, 31 showed how poor African-Americans, living in areas with low levels of trust and high levels of crime, were too frightened to open their windows or doors, or leave their homes to go to local cooling centres established by the city authorities. Neighbours didn’t check on neighbours, and hundreds of elderly and vulnerable people died. In equally poor Hispanic neighbourhoods, characterized by high levels of trust and active community life, the risk of death was much lower.
    RAIDERS AND MAVERICKS

    Perhaps another marker of corroded social relations and lack of trust among people was the rapid rise in the popularity of the Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV) through the 1980s and 1990s. These vehicles are known in the UK by the derogatory term ‘Chelsea tractors’ – Chelsea being a rich area of London, the name draws attention to the silliness of driving rugged off-road vehicles in busy urban areas. But the vehicles themselves have names that evoke images of hunters and outdoorsmen – Outlander, Pathfinder, Cherokee, Wrangler, etc. Others evoke an even tougher image, of soldiers and warriors, with names like Trooper, Defender, Shogun, Raider and Crossfire. These are vehicles for the ‘urban jungle’, not the real thing.
    Not only did the popularity of SUVs suggest a preoccupation with looking tough, it also reflected growing mistrust, and the need to feel safe from others. Josh Lauer, in his paper, ‘Driven to extremes’, asked why military ruggedness became prized above speed or sleekness, and what the rise of the SUV said about American society. 32 He concluded that the trend reflected American attitudes towards crime and violence, an admiration for rugged individualism and the importance of shutting oneself off from contact with others – mistrust. These are not large vehicles born from a co-operative public-spiritedness and a desire to give lifts to hitch-hikers – hitch-hiking started to decline just as inequality started to rise in the 1970s. As one anthropologist has observed, people attempt to shield themselves from the threats of a harsh and untrusting society ‘by riding in SUVs, which look armoured, and by trying to appear as intimidating as possible to potential attackers’. 33 Pollster Michael Adams, writing about the contrasting values of the USA and Canada, pointed out that minivans outsell SUVs in Canada by two to one – the ratio is reversed in America (and Canada is of course more equal than America). 34 Accompanying the rise in SUVs were other signs of Americans’ increasing uneasiness and fear of one another: growing numbers of gated