What the author - and everyone else, it seems - fails to recognise is that in the "socio-economic environment" that has effectively replaced the natural environment as the focus of man's struggle for survival and advantage, everyone is keen to exploit it as best they can. That is what mother nature (i.e. evolution) programmed us to do, and is facilitated by the way our economy works, free-market capitalism having developed to take full (and thus such effective) advantage of man's animal nature (our fears, desires, competitiveness, etc.).  It still greatly favours dukes, bankers, lawyers and other privileged individuals, of course (who exploit it using the opportunities available to them, such as inherited property, off-shore investments, clever accountants etc.), but with the creation of the welfare state, the lower classes were placed in a far better position to exploit it too, using the opportunities available to them, such as social benefits etc.

 

For more on my anthropological approach to understanding the world go to http://www.spaceship-earth.org