Dear Sir/Madam,

In his op-ed contribution to today's NYT, Robert B. Reich shows some understanding of the forces at work shaping the economy (national and global) and with it, our lives, as well as those of our children and coming generations ("Don't Blame Wal-Mart"). However, his understanding does not go nearly deep enough.

Man is Earth's Greatest Ape - an animal, not a fallen angel, whose social behaviour evolved over millions of years to serve the struggle for survival and advantage of individuals and family groups in the natural environment. There has been no time for it to adapt to the much larger social units of human civilisations. 

This same behavioural programming is now focused on the struggle for survival and advantage in the artificial "socio-economic environment " created by civilisation over the past two to three thousand years. In the modern world this largely boils down to making money in the local, national or global economies, thus explaining why we persist in giving the economy (the household of man) priority over ecology (the household of our planet), despite human survival demanding the opposite. 

Our capitalist, free-market economy has developed and been honed to exploit our primitive, animal nature (fear, greed, competitiveness, the desire for security, for a free or cheap lunch, for power, social status etc.), which is why in some respects it works so well. Unfortunately, apart from being inherently unjust and inhumane, it is also fundamentally unsustainable.

It is interesting that neo-Conservatives, who are inclined to deny evolution and man's animal origins, should be the least critical of a socio-economic order so deeply rooted in man's animal nature. Most liberals, on the other hand, assume that we have no choice but to tame and ride the dragon of free-market capitalism, steering it towards the kind of world they would like to see: more prosperous, just, humane, sustainable etc.

What they fail to recognise is that the dragon is blind and with a mind of its own (man's "more animal than human" nature), and - unless we get off - will carry us to our doom.

We are, of course, completely dependent on the existing socio-economic order, so that "getting off" does not seem to be an option. 

What we have to do is create an alternative (one rooted in our more enlightened, human nature) that we can transfer to. As it grows and develops we will be able to move more and more of our activities and dependences to it - not under coercion, but when each of us is ready (i.e. comes out of denial about the non-sustainability of our current economy and materialistic way of life, and recognises what is at stake, if not for ourselves, for our children and coming generations), and at our own pace, until eventually it replaces what we have - and depend on - at the moment.

To say that it is a huge project is something of an understatement, I know. It is going to take some time (several decades) and will be by far the most rapid and radical change (revolution) in human history. But it has to be, if we are to earn the love and gratitude, rather than the curses, of our children and coming generations.

www.spaceship-earth.org