BILL MOYERS: So, for the record let's acknowledge that all this current rhetoric about socialism in Washington is partisan poppycock. The word being fought over so fiercely today lost its meaning long ago. The late social activist and preacher William Sloane Coffin said on my show some years ago that we have to keep pressing the socialist questions because they are questions of justice, but that we should be dubious about the socialist answers, because while the Biblical prophets may call for justice to roll down as mighty waters, figuring out the irrigation system is damned hard.

Furthermore, two months into office, Barack Obama is still standing at the crossroads. Some old hands around him yearn for a third Clinton term -- government as subsidiary of corporate America. Ardent progressive followers, on the other hand, hope his heart really leans to the left, toward the public provision of public goods.

But at bottom, the issue isn't one ideology or another - we're not that kind of country. The issue is inequality. Two British researchers have just made news with a study over three decades, showing that where income is more evenly distributed, people are healthier in mind, body and spirit. You can find out more about their report on our website at pbs.org.* They found that violence, mental illness, overcrowded prisons, drugs, and obesity are more likely in a society where the gap between the have's and have-not's is as great as it is in the United States.

Our gap grew over the past quarter century as capitalism went on a spree of speculating, swindling and cheating. The great collapse is a painful correction. Our long term rescue, however, depends not on any "ism," but on democracy's ability to create a more level playing field, where the health of a battered woman in San Antonio is every bit as valued as a majordomo's on Wall Street.

That's it for the JOURNAL.

Go to the Moyers Web site at pbs.org to read articles by Mike Davis and trace the history of American dissidents from Thomas Paine to Ralph Nader. You also can find some steps to cope with domestic violence in your community. It's all at pbs.org.

I'm Bill Moyers. See you next time.

*THE SPIRIT LEVEL: WHY MORE EQUAL SOCIETIES ALMOST ALWAYS DO BETTER by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett has been published in the U.K. by Allen Lane. It will be published by Bloomsbury USA in the United States in 2009.

Read reviews in THE TIMES OF LONDON, and THE ECONOMIST.