In the popular book “The Trading Game,” British author Gary Stevenson recounts his journey as a trader at a major U.S. bank in London. He has made lofty claims about his trading career and used it as a springboard for his successful YouTube channel, “Garys Economics.”
A tailwind to his popularity is that he holds many fashionable views — for example, that money “is a token,” that printing money is akin to creating wealth, and that capitalism is the problem. He holds these views while noticing that the inflation in the prices of consumables and assets hurt working people at the expense of the wealthy.
An impassioned take on wealth inequality animates his work, but his is a common case. Having observed a problem, ad hoc and confused theorizing stands in the way of identifying the root causes and real solutions. (Readers interested in inequality should listen to Mark Thornton’s “Unanimity” podcast.)
Economics mischaracterized
Economics is the study of how individuals act to satisfy virtually limitless wants in an ever-changing world of limited resources. However, when talk of wealth inequality abounds, one can be sure that economics is about to be mischaracterized as a means of weaponizing the state to distribute a given stock of wealth in a zero-sum and static world. This is redistributionism, or antieconomics.