ABSTRACT
This chapter affirms that inequality is a key indicator of insane society. Furthermore, the contention that the public issue of inequality is linkable to the private trouble of madness is compelling. Inequalities that arise from wealth and other social situations influence both morbidity and mortality levels. Material disadvantage correlates with, and is probably causative of, madness in its medicalised forms of mental disorder. Increases in the diagnosis of anxiety and depression are linkable to both inequality and poverty, as may be psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia. Both inequality and poverty are linkable to the distribution of power in society. It is the inequality in the distribution and discharge of power which key to the inequality in the diagnostic distribution of mental disorder. Wealth inequality, poverty, and the distribution of power is a political choice. So is social sanity and thereby levels of personal madness.
