And the saddest of all, nothing is learned. Cleveland; Camden, New Jersey; Youngstown, Ohio, where I was born—these are all similar catastrophes being unfolded in front of our eyes now and the same inadequate response of a system that can’t deal with this problem.
There’s a direct relationship among health, well-being and one’s place in the greater scheme. Based on studies by the British epidemiologist Michael Marmot, “the higher you are in the social hierarchy the better your health.”
For all the talk of scandal regarding the IRS targeting groups named “Tea Party” or “Patriot,” it’s not hard to draw an additional lesson from the facts of the case — a pattern that follows the well-worn model of the modern political age: Benefits flow to the rich and the well-connected, with pain for the rest.
Is the U.S. a less upwardly mobile society than Britain a century ago?
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