I WAS glad to see the letter from the clerk to Stroud Quakers (Stroud News and Journal, April 15).
Quakers are concerned about poverty and inequality because of our belief in that of God in everyone - sometimes called the Inner Light.
That is the spiritual reason for our concern.
But there is also a practical reason: inequality is bad for society.
The scholarly book The Spirit Level by Wilkinson and Picket, from a study of a wide variety of different countries, concluded that health, life expectancy, infant mortality and literacy were all better in countries with less inequality. Equality here benefited the rich as well as the poor.
In countries with more inequality there was more murder, crime, obesity and mental illness, including drug addiction.
We would spend less on coping with our social problems if society were more just.
Mary Brown
Stroud
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