They derive from our "more animal than human nature". We are the planet's "Greatest Ape"! Homo sapiens indeed. Homo stupidus economicus is more like it!!

To say that human behaviour is strongly influenced by social and economic forces is something of an understatement, but these forces themselves are the product of collective human behaviour.

Our capitalist, free-market economy is designed (i.e. has evolved) to exploit this, our “more animal than human ” behaviour, and the economic forces it engenders, placing us in a double bind, which some how we have to break out of.

Perhaps without realising it, Communists and Socialists sought to replace this socio-economic order with one rooted in man's more enlightened, human nature. They failed miserably, because, despite Darwin's published insights into animal evolution and human origins, they didn't begin to understand just how deeply man's animal nature is rooted in each and everyone of us, and in the existing socio-economic order.

Modern governments, especially Social Democratic ones, have sought to tame and humanize the capitalist, free-market economy, while exploiting it, and the forces it harnesses, to the full. The principle is to allow the primitive economic forces rooted in man's "more animal than human" nature to create as much wealth as possible, a certain (hotly disputed) proportion of which is then creamed off in taxes for the (supposed) common good of society, while the rest is left to "market forces" to enrich society in less equal fashion.

I am convinced that so long as our economy remains rooted in man's "more animal than human nature", we will never be able to make it just, humane or sustainable, but will continue to be driven from one crisis to the next. Even now we are fast approaching the limits of our planet’s carrying capacity, plundering its natural resources and disrupting its climate and life-supporting ecosystems in the process. What the consequences will be do not bear thinking about – which perhaps explains why we are so reluctant to do so. Effectively, we are in denial about our "addiction " to a growth-dependent economy and the non-sustainable, materialistic lifestyles it demands of us - whether we really want them or not.

Because our behaviour is so strongly influenced by social and economic forces, it is imperative that we create an alternative socio-economic order, rather than trying to reform the one we have at present; one rooted, not in our primitive animal nature, but in our more enlightened, human nature.

How do we go about effecting such a revolution ?

The beginnings - of sorts - are already in place (organic farming, recycling, renewable energy, fair trade, moral investments, cooperative undertakings  etc.), but instead of forming just tiny niche sectors in the existing all-dominating socio-economic order, they must organise themselves into a distict alternative alongside it. The more it grows and diversifies the more it will facilitate the transfer of human activities and dependencies (particularly in respect to how we earn, spend and invest our money) from one to the other - everyone when they are ready and at their own pace, with encouragement, yes, but without coercion.