To:
letters@guardian.co.uk Date: Wednesday, 8 June 05 |
||
|
||
In response to your
comment on today's Guardian: "How
could Cherie Blair do this
without blushing?"
Dear Polly,
I share your sentiments on
excessive income entirely and have given much
thought to the matter myself.
You may remember my suggestion
of a "maximum wage".
But we have to go to the source
of the problem, about which
virtually everyone is in
denial: it's our animal
nature, in which so many of
our values, attitudes and
aspirations, AND (most
inconveniently) our entire
socio-economic order are
deeply rooted.
It is no longer just
a matter of fairness and
justice, which we have managed
to survive without up until
now, but of sustainability
on our finite and
vulnerable planet, Spaceship
Earth, without which our
civilisation, perhaps our
entire species, will soon
become extinct.
It is in our genes and in our
blind, animal self-interest to
want as much power (wealth) as
possible.
It is only our more enlightened
human nature that recognises
the threat to sustainability
and our enlightened
self-interest in limits,
including to personal wealth
and power.
The solution is for the more
enlightened among us to create
an alternative and distinct
socio-economic order, rooted,
not in our animal nature, as
at present, but in our
more enlightened human nature.
At the moment we are all
completely dependent on the
existing order, but as the alternative
(if we ever get round to
creating it) grows, we
will be able to transfer more
and more of our activities and
dependencies to it - not under
coercion, but when each of us
is ready (i.e. as people come
out of denial and recognise
what is at stake: their
children's future), and at our
own pace.
Keeping
it clearly distinct and distinguishable
will be essential (as
will transparency in respect
to personal identity and income). The beginnings
(but only as part of the
existing order) already exist:
renewable
energy, recycling, organic
farming, moral investment
funds, fair trade, the
open-source community,
cooperatives, etc.
|
||
|