Gavin Mooney asserts that cutting taxes for the rich will lead to increased mortality. He does not provide any statistical analysis to validate his claim.

After reading Gavin’s article, I researched GDP per capita and Life Expectancy tables. The rankings are very similar; people in rich countries live much longer, however, if you compare OECD countries the figures are quite different, especially when you consider tax rates.

Switzerland, Ireland, USA and Japan with an average of 28% tax on GDP have a slightly better Life Expectancy than Sweden, Denmark, Belgium and Finland with 48% tax on GDP.

After considering this data, I believe Professor Mooney’s assertions are probably incorrect for OECD countries but may be relevant when comparing rich to poor countries

So, by your rationale, it is better to be poor together as a community (poorer even than your countrymen), and by being so, you can achieve mortality rates only 2-3 years less than the richest country. Just think about that logic for a second. Why not aspire to be the richest and live longer than everyone?

Norway has the highest living standards and one of the most equal income distributions in the developed world. How does such a paradise exist, you might ask? The answer is oil, oil exports subsidise the economy to produce the social welfare state they enjoy today. They've even thought ahead to put a US$189 billion nest egg to pay for their paradise well after oil runs out. Of course, not every country is blessed with being the third highest exporter of oil and a relatively small population. Mind you, what about the ethics of building a paradise on the back of big oil and all the environmental consequences of global warning etc? A bit of a quandary for socialist environmentalists, perhaps, but not for me. Good luck to Norway, but for the rest of us, I prefer to live in a world dominated by liberal ideals and capitalist economies, inequalities and all.

Just how do you define poverty anyway? Is poverty not being able to afford to buy your own home and living in state subsidized housing? Is it having to forego educating your children in private schools and send them to state schools instead? Is it having to buy sausages for dinner rather than fillet steak? Or is it in fact, not being to afford to eat, or put a roof over your head or send your children off to school at all? Poverty is not relative, it is absolute. If being poorer than your neighbour means you make less health conscience decisions about your life, then so be it. Not living as long as your neighbour is not a bad thing, if you both have a reasonable expectation of living into your 70’s, which is what the overwhelming majority of Australians share today.

HOT OFF THE PRESS

The 7 core beliefs of average Australians:

¦ They lived in a very successful nation for foreigners with imported skills and those working in public service or for government supported monopoly companies..

¦ They only have to be ashamed of the lack of vision and mental acuity of their politicians who sacrifice their own citizens for a free raid on education budgets through HECS fees and immigration and outsourcing of skills..

¦ Australia was well-regarded around the world ... by foreign predators who are given the wink and nod by John Howard to come here and do as they please and with as many amigos as they see fit..

¦ Foreigners with skills are allowed to push average Australians down on their luck. These individuals should be given a fair go if down on their luck but, once helped out the door, should not expect to be let back in with any kind of community support.

¦ Traditional institutions like the family were central but we can't stop stop them persecuting people with alternative views of course.

¦ People should be very tolerant, believe in unity when facing a common threat and roll over to our plans for neo-liberal-feudalism.

¦ Society should be classless where a person's worth was determined by personal character, hard work and foreign based skills that Brendan Nelson's edjucation portfolio doesn't have to pay for. We don't care about religion, race or social background. Allegiance to King John the first of Australia and never mentioning the word Runnymeade (ooops!) are the only criteria to be considered.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/howard-outlines-his-nations-core-beliefs/2005/09/08/1125772641082.html

King John I of England was energetic and enthusiastic about making government reforms. He set about restructuring his administration and reforming accounting practices. His main goal was to increase the crown treasury.
He would also sell forfeited lands and royal wards and widows to the highest bidder.
He was forced to sign the Magna Carta on June 15, 1215.

Mooney argues that the proposed tax cuts should be avoided becuase of:

"...ideals such as altruism, social solidarity, compassion, building the social fabric, developing a civilised society, or to social justice or a social responsibility to take care of the vulnerable in society."

Ok let's look at these ideals one by one:

altruism: Which section of income earners gives a larger proportion of its money to charities? Those earning more.

social solidarity: What does he mean by that anyway? Maybe he means that everyone has the same income. But to achieve that we would need a totalitarian state.

compassion: Last time I looked in the dictionary "compassion" was about voluntary acts of kindness to those in need, not about the Marxist concept of income equalisation.

building the social fabric: The social fabric is better built by people co-operating in mutual assistance at a grass-roots level, not by some big-brother government interfering in our lives from a great height, balancing out who gets what.

civilised society: Civilisation is built on voluntary enterprise and personal responsibility, not on the dynamics of class warfare.

social justice: What's just about taking away what someone works for with their own hands to give to someone else who may or may not deserve it?

Just came across this article. I know Wilkinson's work very well - he and I were colleagues at Sussex and debated this issue endlessly. Suffice it to say that the British Medical Journal has concluded that the inter-country comparative evidence used by Wilkinson does not stand up. It says his findings are "an artefact of the selection of countries. Now that good data on income inequality have become available for 16 western industrialised countries, the association between income inequality and life expectancy has disappeared" (BMJ 5 Jan 2002, vol 324, p.1).
On another matter, I wish critics like Mooney would make some effort to understand so-called "neo-liberalism" before they attack it. The tired claim that this perspective is blind to considerations of the 'social good' has been refuted countless times (most recently by Johan Norberg in his excellent "In Defence of Global Capitalism").