SIR – Mr A Michael Murphy demands to know of Max Hey what alternative he can offer to the capitalist system which is collapsing around our ears (Letters, October 25).

Well, I can’t speak for Max Hey, but I’d guess it would be the same as mine: socialism.

It’s a system that got discredited during the dying days of the Soviet Union, but it was the system which turned the Nazis back at Stalingrad (ensuring that we have the free speech to argue in the columns of the T&A).

And socialism is still the objective in Cuba (whose revolution has allowed it to survive the US blockade for more than 50 years, creating a health service so good Cuban doctors are sent to help developing nations).

And socialist China is not only the United States’ biggest creditor (propping up the system Mr Murphy likes so much), but in a strange anomaly, it is also the world’s fastest growing capitalist system, but a system controlled by communists.

I am not a great fan of China’s capitalist road, but it may give us some pointers as to how we might manage the transition from capitalism to socialism when the inevitable melt-down occurs

Karl Dallas, Church Green, Bradford