Gary Stevenson understands how our economic model causes the rich to become richer, whilst the middle class hand over their assets to the rich. Gary has a YouTube channel ‘Gary’s Economics’, and has recently published a book ‘The Trading Game’. I have watched several of his YouTube videos and in this article I attempt to summarise the key points that I have grasped. The headers provide the link to the relevant video clips.
If the UK middle class can acquire the understanding that Gary is sharing, we shall have a more optimistic future. We might even see the UK lead the world away from global financial collapse.
When the UK Conservatives in the 70s and 80s privatised aspects of our infrastructure, they sold off assets that previously belonged to the government. Since then, this asset wealth has been migrating into the hands of the very wealthy, leaving the government and the rest of the country at the mercy of the very rich. Initially the middle class were involved in the transition of assets away from the government, but only the very rich were able to hang on to these physical assets in the longer term.
We are all poorer as a result, because the very rich do not prioritise the wellbeing of the general public; consideration for others was never a key factor in the competitive culture that drives growth economics. See this episode after about 8 minutes: ‘Why Doesn’t the Government tax the Rich?’, here Gary explains the level of indoctrination in the field of economics which completely rules out the consideration of inequality, or wealth distribution in economic modelling. In other episodes he explains that money is not a physical resource like food, water, or land, it is a way of distributing resources amongst ourselves. Therefore as financial inequality grows, the real resources are moving increasingly into the hands of the very wealthy.
We all know that growth economics drives our thinking, our education, and our judicial system. We know this because no political party dares to suggest that we need to equitably shrink the economy. We hear a lot about the need for ‘levelling up’, but we never hear about the need for ‘levelling down’.
Gary does not suggest equitable ‘Degrowth’, but he opens eyes to the ludicrous nature of economics experts in academia and the media, where no-one is penalised for constantly making incorrect predictions and promoting unwise economic models. The fact that Kate Raworth, author of Doughnut Economics, and Gary Stevenson author of the ‘Trading Game’, both studied at Oxford and have both failed to prevent this continued farce in academia, reveals the depth of entrenched thinking at a prestigious University like Oxford.
Game Theory is Broken (March 2024)
In this episode Gary explains that the theory behind our modern economy and sales techniques assumes selfish behaviour. The only way to break out of the destructive pattern that we have encouraged and adopted with the ‘competitive’ and ‘selfish’ mindset that is taught in our schools and universities, is by recognising that we are all going to be worse off if we do not learn to collaborate and support each other. Gary describes the culture of his youth thus: ‘Get rich, or die trying’. He talks about how we are persuaded to behave and think selfishly. Ordinary people have been persuaded to focus solely on their own family and not look at the wider picture, thus ensuring economic collapse and a return to poverty for their children and grand-children.
Unless we tax the wealthy we shall not prevent the growing wealth inequality, nor the inevitable economic and ecological collapse. The only way to ensure that resources can be more fairly distributed is by diminishing the power and the wealth of the very wealthy and redistributing that wealth and power. For that to happen, we all need to understand that the long-term future is bleak if we fail to change ourselves.
Why the Rich Get Richer (March 2024)
In this episode Gary points out that humanity are returning to type. For most of our history, large civilisations have grown and collapsed on the basis of inequality. The period of growing financial equality in Europe since World War II was an aberration rather than the norm. Now the naivety and trust of ordinary people is allowing us to sink back into severe inequality. Our economic model is syphoning wealth back into the hands of the rich and powerful.
How You Lose Your House (February 2024)
This episode looks at how the UK middle class, who were able to afford to buy a home in the 1960s-1970s are now in their old age. Gary explains that the money from these properties often goes into their end of life care. This causes their land assets to be lost to their descendants. House prices are no longer within reach of the young middle-class, unless they manage to become exceptionally high earners.
Why Your Economists Suck (December 2023)
This episode analyses the career of an economist. Most of them study in a small group of elite universities, and most of them come from a wealthy background. Economists at these elite universities learn algorithms rather than actually looking at economies and how they work. The most capable economists will simply go into finance and work on making huge amounts of money on the stock market; the minority become public facing economists. The public-facing economists are not the best-paid nor are they the most capable economists. Gary explains how academic economists are not paid to be correct with their predictions. An academic in the discipline of economics will earn prestige by putting together elegant mathematical analyses.
Gary’s summary of the economists working in the media exposes a farcical tribe, whose sole objective is to produce professional looking content, regardless of whether it accurately represents what is unfolding in reality. Gary points out how economists in the central banks are not incentivised to be right, because their are no penalties when their predictions are wrong.
When it comes to politicians, Gary is warning them that if they don’t fix inequality the economy will collapse. The response from political economists is simply that ‘fixing inequality is not a vote-winner’.
In summary, the very best economists are the traders in the financial world, who are not involved in the actual process of running the country’s economy. The others are just playing a delusional game to earn a living for themselves. Only the very rich can afford to employ the most successful economists. The government is preoccupied with getting votes rather than making wise financial decisions. Gary would be willing to work for free for the government, but the system does not allow that. Our public economists are not accountable, they constantly get their predictions wrong, but they are not removed from their role or penalised in any way. We all all suffer when their predictions continually fail to deliver the economic growth that we crave, and only result in driving the wealth gap between rich and poor ever higher.
Conclusion
I identify with Gary’s struggle to convince ordinary people that they have to make the effort to understand what is going on with global economics or their children and grand children will suffer. I think that he is doing a brilliant job of exposing the stupidity of modern economic theory for the benefit of the lay person.
Gary Stevenson does not discuss the ecological implications of our economic decisions. I hope to be in a position to invite him to talk at an event at some point. I am hoping that we can tie-in his astute understanding of economics with the escalating ecosystems collapse.
The massive blind spot regarding wealth distribution in our economic modelling, is endangering the survival of the human race because we need peaceful collaboration to address climate breakdown and ecosystems collapse. There will be no peace whilst the number of starving people continues to increase. I recently talked online to some sixth form students from Collyer’s college in West Sussex, this was the little 20 minute talk that I prepared, ‘Degrowth Dawns’. As an example of equitable ‘Degrowth’ I usually point to the trillion dollar international drink industry. The only essential drink is potable water. Therefore, the drinks industry is a classic example of how we spend trillions of dollars and fossil fuels on a non-essential commercial enterprise that only serves to accelerate climate and ecosystems collapse. The same could be said about the tourist industry.
Ted Trainer has recently provided a short paper about the growing likelihood of economic collapse arising from ecosystems collapse, it is accessible from this link.