Hierarchies hurt your health

John Quiggin over at Crooked Timber has sparked off an interesting chat about autonomy. His cues are a book called The Status Syndrome : How Social Standing Affects Our Health and Longevity by Michael Marmot and a post by Bill Gardner. Essentially, if I understand it, Marmot looked at the British Civil Service over a period of 30 years, and came to a surprising conclusion. The health of people at the top of a hierarchy – any hierarchy – is better than that of those at the bottom.

As Bill says,

From the Marmot perspective, the inequality of autonomy and social participation is itself a cause of poor health. There would be positive feedback on the total amount of health — and thus of social welfare — if we reduced social inequality. This is, I think, a new and strong argument for egalitarianism.

John goes on to point out that

One way of increasing your autonomy is by reducing that of other people, for example by moving up an existing hierarchy at their expense. But autonomy is not a zero-sum good. Some social structures give more people more autonomy than others.

Brings up lots of questions. What social structures? is, I suppose, the first question, and then maybe how to instill them? Also, are “healthy” companies those that make efforts to maximise employees’ autonomy and social participation?

And, erm, given the mens sana in corpore sano school motto I grew up with, how about this for a dodgy syllogism for ten:

• group structures that maximise member autonomy and social participation confer on those members healthier bodies,
• healthy bodies entail healthy minds
• So, group structures that maximise member autonomy and social participation confer on those members healthier minds?

Right. This is fatboy signing off with a cough – I’ve got a bugger of a hierarchy – but do read Bill and John’s posts.