Dear Polly,

I didn't like your "attitude" in last Saturday's Guardian ("We need their money"). Allow me to explain why.

Your approach is one of a long, misguided tradition: The rich and "successful" are generally too selfish and greedy and must, thus, be forced to do what is right, i.e. to give up a greater proportion of their wealth (through taxation) to help the poor.

But the rich and "successful" are simply doing what the poor and "less-successful" would also do in their position: pursuing what they consider to be their own self-interest. Just look at the numbers of people who play the lottery in the hope of becoming millionaires. And when the less-well-off do acquire wealth they guard it just as self-righteously and jealously as the already-rich guard theirs. The reason for this is man's "more animal than human" nature, upon which our society and economy are both based and dependent.

Despite knowing about Darwin and his theory of human origins, like most people, you fail to understand the animal roots of so-called human nature, and that it is on these, far more than on our more enlightened human nature that our world is founded.

I share your desire for a more just, humane and - no-less importantly - sustainable society, but your approach to attaining it is fundamentally flawed. 

You disagree, of course, and I can understand your reluctance to question your approach; because is serves you so well, enabling you to feel good by making a living from criticising the existing order, on which, like everyone else, you also depend. And because you depend on it, you cannot help but support and perpetuate it - even while you are criticising it.

If you are sincere about wanting a more just and humane society, as I am sure you are, you should help to create a distinct, if not immediately independent, alternative to what we have now, a society and economy based, not on our animal nature, as at present, but on our more enlightened human nature.

Where to start? By thinking about it and discussing it, and perhaps by taking a look at my homepage, which despite all its inadequacies and still being very much "under construction", nevertheless offers some important ideas and insights.

I liked the article by David Haslam, "May Day, money and morality", which also appeared in last Saturday's Guardian. Creating an alternative society based on man's "more human than animal" nature will require a "religious" approach, although  I don't think that Christianity is really suitable (see Genesis revisited).