False equality

LESLEY Riddoch quotes a book which claims that more equal societies "do better" while less equal ones "experience a corrosive, life-shortening lack of tryst and well-being" (Opinion, 1 February).

If this were true, then the Soviet Union and the rest of the Communist bloc would not have collapsed so ignominiously. The equating of poverty with inequality is false and Marxist and egalitarianism is simply the rationalisation of rewarding failure and punishing success.

BRUCE CRICHTON

Victoria Road

Falkirk, Stirlingshire