Dear Sir/Madam,

The titles of many a newspaper article, not only in the Telegraph, reveal a fundamental lack of understanding of man's "more animal than human " nature, in which society and the economy are deeply rooted.

For example, the headline "Overseas 'students' are cheating system by staying in Britain" suggests that these people are doing something to be ashamed of, when in fact they are doing nothing of the sort. They are simply seeking their own advantage, as we are all inclined (indeed, programmed and conditioned) to do, in the "socio-economic environment " that has effectively replaced the "natural environment" as the place where we struggle for survival and advantage. 

Those at the top end of the socio-economic hierarchy, as they have done through the ages, take advantage of the possibilities available to them (social status, inherited wealth, unearned income, cleaver accountants and investment managers, tax havens, celebrity, etc), while those at the bottom end are now able to exploit social welfare. In between the middle classes indulge in petty insurance fraud, tax evasion and the like.

It is time we faced up to the fact, pointed out by Darwin well over a century ago, that we are animals, the planet's "Greatest Ape ", programmed and conditioned by millions of years of evolution to struggle for survival and advantage in the natural environment. The development of civilisation has resulted in this struggle being transferred to the socio-economic environment, which free-market capitalism has adapted to take advantage of man's primitive animal nature, allowing everyone (and companies) to pursue their own private (and largely primitive, i.e. materialistic) interests within a wider social framework.

Thanks to scientific and technological advances, wealth creation has increased exponentially in the last hundred years or so and governments have been able to cream off more and more of it for various, good and not so good, purposes (social infrastructure, defence, education, health care, social security etc). Having given up earlier ideals of creating a more just and humane socio-economic order, social reformers now concentrate on advancing the capitalist economy, so as to cream off ever more funds to finance their pseudo "Socialist" state.

New Labour is trying to finance Socialism with Capitalist cash,  Despite the good intentions, it cannot work, of course.

The problem with free-market capitalism is that it is rooted in man's "more animal than human " nature, making it fundamentally unjust, inhumane and unsustainable.

Up until now our more enlightened, human nature has been content to divert large amounts of the wealth created by our capitalist economy to social causes, infrastructure, health care, education, etc. But this now has to change radically

If we wish to create a just, humane and sustainable socio-economic order - the alternative to which is extinction - we have to base it on our more enlightened, human nature.