Relative Deprivation has to do with the mental, emotional and physical disorders that result from the stress of simply existing in the lower tiers of an extremely wealth-imbalanced society. How so? Because living in the lower tiers usually includes poor educational opportunities K-12, overworked parents many of whom hold down two or three jobs and have little time for their kids, bad dietary habits (plenty of deep-fried fastfood, sugary drinks, etc.), extremely polluted air and water, and food that is contaminated with pesticides and herbicides.
For example, numerous studies that compare public health outcomes from one country to another, based on differences in the level of inequality from one country to the next, have found that those countries with the least amount of behavioral violence, (i.e. the least amount of general crime, infant deaths, drug addictions, heart disease, cancer, obesity, high blood pressure, low life expectancy, depression, general mental illness and many other problems) also have lower wealth inequality (i.e. they are more egalitarian and don't have as much poverty) as compared to the other countries. [Wilkinson, R. G., & Pickett, K. (2011). The Spirit Level. Penguin, March 2009, p.65]
Put together, these two forms of deprivation constitute what is called "Structural Violence"-- which is a systemic form of violence that is typically not what many think of when we consider the idea of "violence" in general.
Think of it this way: If I put a gun to your head and kill you, we would all agree that this is a direct act of mortality-producing violence.
On the other hand, if I run a company that decides to save money by covertly dumping toxic waste into your town's water supply, and then three years later a group of you get cancer and die from that pollution, I think we would all agree that this too is an act of mortality-producing violence, just less direct and less obvious.
It is now well established statistically
and medically, from cross-cultural studies, that people with low socioeconomic
status are much more likely to die of heart disease than those in upper classes. (Click here and here )
It is a known fact that the toxic condition of simply being poor (as referenced previously), due to both absolute and relative influences, leads to heart disease and many other kinds of illness.
And yet, when people do die this way, rarely does someone bring up the idea of indirect violence or, more accurately, "economic-structure-based violence." Why so? It's because the outcome can only be measured and inferred by way of statistics gathered from across large populations, and cannot be deduced from any singular case. Therefore it seems counter-intuitive to all observers who comprise the statistically not-so-savvy majority.
Be that as it may, at some level there is no difference between being killed by a gunshot to the head; being poisoned by a careless corporation's pollution, or dying of heart disease because of the causal chain reaction set in motion by a highly unequal and unfair socioeconomic system, which is, by definition, a system that actually generates ever more economic inequality and poverty, inevitably forcing some people to exist in the toxic conditions that in most societies accompanies low socioeconomic status.
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