Summary: What makes sustainable and "happy" communities? In this paper I present some ways of thinking about this question from the perspective of 17th century philosopher Baruch Spinoza. I will compare his ethical and political views to recent research in the social sciences that links income inequality to numerous negative social outcomes. On one reading, Spinoza appears very much in line with the view that inequalities in income necessarily have negative outcomes, but on a more Nietzschean reading, he can be seen to advocate such inequalities as the best and most rational way to live. Beth Lord is Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Dundee, Scotland. She is author of Kant and Spinozism: Transcendental Idealism and Immanence from Jacobi to Deleuze (Palgrave Macmillan 2010), and Spinoza's Ethics: An Edinburgh Philosophical Guide (EUP, 2010).
