To: letters@guardian.co.uk
Re: Creating an alternative society based on our more enlightened, human nature

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.