To: letters@guardian.co.uk
Re: The continuing need for a "maximum wage"
Date: Wed, 04 June 2003

Dear Wo Toynbee,

Reading your contribution to today's Guardian ("Fat cats can be tamed if the government has the will"), I conclude that you didn't take my suggestion of a MAXIMUM WAGE very seriously (my email of 7 February).

Wagging your finger at the government and industry fat cats about economic and social injustice is not going to change anything, at least not to any meaningful extent. Even if executive pay were halved, it would still be far too high. You are just clipping at the branches of a problem that must be tackled at its roots.

These roots are the values, attitude and aspirations on which our society and economy are based. And these stem from our primitive (more animal than human) nature; which is why, of course, in many ways, our economic system works so well, giving everyone the freedom to exploit their personal resources and advantages in pursuit of their own materialistic self-interests.

It all boils down to giving people the freedom and encouraging them to do what comes naturally to their more animal than human nature, making as much money for themselves as possible, with the government creaming off a portion for social purposes (defence, education, health care, etc). It is a system designed to maximise the creation of material wealth, and depends on ever more being created (economic growth). But on our  planet, aptly referred to as Spaceship Earth, with its limited natural resources and finite carrying capacity, such a system cannot possibly be sustained. Considering the size of its population, which will soon exceed 7 billion, it cannot be sustained for more than a few more decades at the most.

The system cannot be reformed, certainly not in time available. Although I am sure well intentioned, your efforts provide you with a very comfortable position in the existing, non-sustainable socio-economic order, which makes it extremely difficult for you, and most others, to see the need to replace it with something completely different. But that is what has to be done.

The only way to avoid the catastrophe towards which we are heading (or at least to reduce its extent and improve our (children's) chances of survival and recovery), as well as creating a far more just and humane society in the process, is to create it within existing society. The seeds are already sown (organic farming; cooperative enterprises; ethical investments etc), but they need to be cultivated and developed, not as an insignificant appendage to our existing economy, but as an entirely distinct and increasingly independent, sustainable ALTERNATIVE, with its own, very different, values, attitudes and aspirations, one of which will be acceptance of a MAXIMUM WAGE.