Dear Polly,

Attacking the rich and powerful does nothing to serve your worthy purpose of creating a more just and humane society ("A cringing appeasement of the rich and the powerful").

Rather, one must appeal to their "enlightened" self-interest. Only in present circumstances, with so few people (rich or poor) aware of what their "enlightened" self-interests are, there is little point.

The harder you try and take their money away from them, the more tenaciously they will hold on to it.  And if you overstep a certain line, things can turn very nasty, just as they can with an otherwise good-natured dog, if you try taking a bone away from it.

Although we all learn it at school nowadays, we tend to forget (because we never really understand) that man is an animal (the planet's Greatest Ape!). Money to us is what a bone is to a hungry dog. 

For the same reason, the notion of naming and shaming corporate fat cats is also misconceived. It is like naming and shaming a playboy. You may embarrass him a little at a superficial, social level, but deep down (in his animal nature) he is proud of (and among other males, at least, admired and envied for) all the beautiful women he has bedded. After all, it is the oldest, most basic (primitive) and incontrovertible expression of male success. 

Money, although a relatively modern human invention, connects directly with our deep-rooted animal desire for power, of which it is by far the most versatile form, with properties that may well be considered "magical" (Towards a Philosophy of Sustainability: Money . . . .).

The rich are universally admired and envied, and not just by males. Even you and I envy them - because of all the social good we could do if we had their money, i.e. power.

Most of us - whatever our income and social status - share more-or-less the same values, attitudes and aspirations (ones rooted in our "more animal than human nature", and on which our growth-dependent economy is both based and dependent). The main difference is that while the rich are able to fulfil many of their aspirations, the rest of us can only dream about it.

You and I dream of using money to create a better, more just society. But most people dream of using it to do what most rich people already do: to buy expensive cars and houses, and generally to lead extravagantly materialistic, grossly non-sustainable lifestyles, which they otherwise only know from glossy magazines and the media (How many millionaires can our planet, Spaceship Earth, support?).

In everyday parlance, "success" is synonymous with making money. The more money an enterprise or person makes the more "successful" they are considered to be. Even your success, Polly, is judged to a large extent by the amount of money you earn.

A difference between you and I is that while you want to use taxpayers money to create a better, more just society, I don't believe that can ever work.

We have an economic system which is based on, and thus also depends on and exploits, man's more animal than human nature (his primitive fears and desires), which is understandable in the light of what we now know about human origins. It leaves people relatively free to pursue their own "self-interests", which generally boils down to making as much money as possible for themselves, while the government creams off a large portion by way of taxes in order to provide services for the general social good (defence, education, health care, etc.). Some people, of course, are more interested in having an easy life than in making money, especially if they don't have an easy or agreeable way of doing so.

When mankind first emerged more than 50,000 years ago, he presumably continued to struggle for advantage and survival in the natural environment (in small family groups), as all animals do. This remained the case even when he settled down in small agricultural communities. But the emergence of urban society was accompanied by a fundamental change: to a struggle for advantage and survival in the socio-economic environment (or social jungle).

This is something that social reformers, like yourself, tend to ignore, projecting onto society as a whole your noble ideal of people giving "according to their abilities and take according to their needs". But our animal nature impels us (encouraged by a society and economy still largely based on it) to take as much as we can get away with.

Those at the bottom of society seek to exploit the socio-economic environment as best they can (taking advantage of benefits and social security etc.), while those at the top do the same (taking advantage of fame, fortune, the media, unearned or easy income, cleaver accountants, etc.). It is a socio-economic jungle and you are wasting your time demanding that government regulate it.

It cannot be regulated in a just and humane way - not with so many people primarily concerned, and encouraged, to seek their own advantage.

If we are to create a just and humane society (which must also include a sustainable economy and lifestyles for 7-9 billion people if we are not to exceed the carrying capacity of our planet, Spaceship Earth, and bring about our own extinction) we have to start from scratch, establishing a alternative, society and economy within the existing order of things.

Actually, we do not have to start completely from scratch. The beginnings already exist, in the form of organic farming, fair trade, moral investment funds, recycling, renewable energy, cooperatively organised enterprises, and the like. But instead of forming a barely significant niche market in the existing economic order, they need to organise themselves into a distinct and recognisable alternative, so that we can readily tell what kind of society and economy we are supporting when we "earn, spend and invest our money".

The problem with using taxpayers' money is the degree of alienation it involves. Thus, tax is universally seen as a burden to be avoided whenever possible. I want to belong to a society in which people are generally keen to contribute their "fair share", and would be ashamed not to, or to take more than they deserve from society in return.

Such a society can only be created by people with very different values, attitudes and aspirations to those on which existing society is based, ones rooted not in our primitive, animal nature, but in our more enlightened human nature.

The basis of all morality (right behaviour), I believe, must be based on individual self-interest. In existing society, what is perceived as self-interest is largely rooted in our primitive, more animal than human nature (e.g. seeking personal, especially financial, advantage). In the alterative society I envisage, this narrow, primitive form of self-interest will be replaced by "enlightened" self-interest. Above all, by the interest in self-preservation, which means not exceeding the carrying capacity of our planet (The straw(s) that broke the camel's back).

It is not enough just to have (as I'm sure you do) more enlightened, human values, attitudes and aspirations. They have to be made the basis of an alternative society and economy.