You are wrong Polly, "wild west capitalism" is NOT "born of servility to the City", but of servility to humankind's animal nature and behaviour - in respect to which you, on the political left, are as deeply in denial as the religious right.

Like all good Social Democrats, you believe that "democratic society" can tame and control the dragon of free-market capitalism, assuming that we have no choice but to live with it, dependent as we all are on the booty and spoils from its plundering.

Being a person of conscience, you want the spoils to be more fairly distributed. The boys in the city should be made to hand over more of the treasure, they have unfairly gabbed for themselves, to the more needy.

But the dragon has a mind of its own (rooted in our blind, dumb-animal nature) and is carrying us towards our doom. Despite which, no one wants to contemplate getting off.

Where to? And why, when - for the moment, at least - most of us are sitting so comfortably and having such an enjoyable ride?

http://www.spaceship-earth.org