Re the claim by Tim Worstall of the Adam Smith Institute (Letters, 31 January) that 25% of Guardian readers may be among the wealthiest 1% of the world’s population (and the implication that therefore their response to articles like Nesrine Malik’s is mere attitudinising), the model of human nature favoured by the Adam Smith Institute has no room for a sense of fairness or a wish for a more equitable distribution of resources. However, that is not to say that these tendencies are nowhere to be found, or that all people are incapable of acting against their own (narrowly defined) interests. After all, even Bill Gates and Warren Buffett have suggested that the present distribution of wealth is unjust.
Douglas Graham
Hamilton, South Lanarkshire
