From Paul Wilson
In your editorial about multi-level selection, you suggest that altruism might replace “unrestrained” market forces (3 November, p 3). This hope ignores the fact that the groups competing to be “selected” in the ecosystem of a global marketplace are corporations and economic areas. Within these groups, cooperation and altruism do indeed improve their fitness, but cooperation between them too often serves only to monopolise markets and restrict access to them.
Regulating this finite ecosystem to guarantee access and competitive variety is the only form of restraint that can improve fairness and efficiency at the same time. Altruistic behaviour between the players is unlikely to do either.
Kelvedon, Essex, UK
