Dear Polly,

 

I share the concerns you express in today's Guardian ("Fat cats' pay is the result of greed, not competition") regarding fat cat pay, and your reasons for having them, but your proposed remedy has a long history of failure - because far too superficial and basically wrong-headed.

 

Why is life in the modern world (economy) a "rat race"? Because much of the time, we behave like rats. Why do we behave like rats? Because we too are animals (at least to a far greater extent than generally acknowledged) and (NB) because our capitalist, free-market economy is very largely based and dependent on our animal nature, of which fat cats (or rather, fat rats) are a natural and necessary consequence.

 

Changing the world a little bit for the better, which is what I think you are trying to do, is not enough. It is like working the pumps on the stricken Titanic. 

We will not achieve sustainability, and thus avoid extinction (or something uncomfortably close to it), without putting an end to the rat race. To do that we must radically change our economy and lifestyles, along with the more animal than human values, attitudes and aspirations on which they are based.

It is a waste of time and energy criticising the existing system. We have to create a alternative, fairer, more humane and above all, sustainable society and economy - based, not on our animal nature, but on our human nature.

Unfortunately, we do not have a lot of time - 2 or 3 decades at the most, I guess. So the sooner we get stuck in the better. Catastrophe is probably unavoidable at this late date (we should have started in earnest in the 1970's). Nevertheless, the more progress we make the less severe it will be and the better our (children's) chances of survival and recovery.