Why Garys Economics is ALMOST right, but not quite
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- Опубліковано 7 лют 2025
- Some thoughts on Gary Stevenson, the economist behind popular UA-cam channel, Garys Economics. Here I argue that Gary remains trapped within a paradigm that thinks of everything in terms of representation and power. As an alternative, I propose that we rethink his examples in terms of libidinal economy. You can watch Gary's story about his experiences with Citibank here: • The games and strategy...
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I think you miss the point, Gary is not anti capitalist, he is anti rampant inequality he doesnt deny money he can just see how inequality is going to ruin the imperfect system that we have.
And here where Gary is missing the point. He should really read the philosophers who paved a path to socialism. He has lack of theory and look only into the process of inequality of owning assets and resources. And think that if you put tax on asset owners everything will get back to normal. But that’s completely wrong. In Danemark and other Scandinavian countries they already were living in these conditions and ended up with school shootings. Capitalism should be replaced as a system entirely and the new system should be grounded on different terms. Period
@@WizardValend up with school shootings, come on mate. What are you trying to push
@@WizardVal Wow, one school shooting is the result of wealth redistribution? Crazy man.
I don't think you understand Gary. He talks about wealth in assets not money. He's not talking about someone with 100s of pounds compared to someone with hundreds of thousands. He's talking about people with no assets compared to people with billions in assets who literally own the country.
Saved me making the same point 👍. This guy missed the point of asset value vs zero assets of the 99%. He seems to think the left despise wealth....we dont as long as its taxed proportionately ( which it isnt ), as long as it isnt used to deprive average workers the ability to own their own home ( which it is through huge private property portfolios that push rwnts ever higher).
This chap seems incapable of seeing the difference
I think that's a fair observation - although I should have perhaps been clearer that, in the theory of money I promote here, the distinction between money and assets is treated in a way that would still be incompatible with Gary's perspective. A topic for a future video perhaps.
Yeah, Gary's main point is that we argue too much about income/cash when the bigger driving force in our lives is wealth and assets.
No matter what you libidinally desire, we all need shelter to survive. So when the cost of a house quadruples, there's a huge inequality between people who are forced to rent while saving for a mortgage versus those who have spare houses to rent. Even if they manage to buy a house, for most people it'll be the most expensive asset they own.
"We can't bring down the system" Gary just wants to tax billionaires on their assets. He's not an anti-capitalist, he just wants a healthier form of capitalism.
In fact, his laser-focus on asset-inequality cuts across a lot of the ideological divides in politics. So if people "talk to each other" about that alone, they actually could succeed.
@ I know that by presenting it as a simple matter of surviving the hostile pragmatics of tenure, your aim is to promote simple rationality as a political solution. However, what is really happening is that this simple rationality serves to hide deeper libidinal investments. For instance, why is tax the solution rather than, say, abolishing private property and giving universal squatters rights to everyone? Isn't this "healthy capitalism" the ultimate bourgeois fantasy? Capitalism's libidinal game is like quicksand. The more simple rationality you apply to fix it, the deeper you get sucked in.
@scruffyuncle zero points for consitently missing the point.
What you advocate here is not capitalism but a soft socialism while allowing the wealthy to retain their assets..... Omg are you really so simple?
This protest was a bit difficult to categorize at first, but then you came to your point.
'we can't topple the system'
'people are just this way'
'ordinary people are just as bad as the rich'
You're one of the people that has a low opinion of humanity. You don't seem to believe in true empathy as a foundational motivation. Or that we could overcome greed.
This is just wrong. Humans can change. We DO change, and there's nothing we can do to stop that. It's only the direction of change we can affect.
And Garry isn't saying anything new here. He's espousing the same belief the left has said since the beginning of the political spectrum hundreds of years ago. His is the core message of the left. The first and last message. The most important message. The only thing that's changed about it is the people saying it and the way they're saying it.
We are designed through natural selection. We intrinsically put ourselves and our "tribe" first out of shear survival - this is both consciously and subconsciously. It's built into our DNA. Communism/Marxism goes against this basic trait of our biology. Capitalism, although not perfect, rewards those financially for selfish actions. And typically, under a fair system of competing and not a monopoly, those selfish actions benefits everyone else through innovation and invention. It's basically the reason why although socialism, communism and Marxism has been tried hundreds of different times in different cultures and regions of the world over the last centuries, capitalism always wins.
@@bigfisher4354 Here are just three things you could consider. You're conflating natural selection and human behaviour. Monopolies are a feature of captitalism, not an option. Socialism built the NHS is the UK and is considered one of our greatest achievements.
Whether you know it or not, you're reasoning is incredibly flawed.
@@bigfisher4354 Nice falacy of apeal to nature there. Monopoly is the consequence of competence, not the opposite.
@ Is this a joke? Socialism did not build the NHS... The UK has never had socialism. The NHS isn't a socialist system. It exists in a market economy round capitalist system subsidised by the tax payer. Next thing you are going to say is that the military was also built by socialism. Do you have any idea what socialism actually is?
Typical uneducated people commenting on things they don't understand.
@ you think socialism built the NHS??? Next thing you will say is "socialism built the British military". The NHS (and British military) exist in a market economy where they are paid for through tax payers money to private businesses to provide the services. The NHS has never, and will never, be a socialist system. You have no idea what you're talking about. Paying taxes isn't socialism lol
This just reinforces Gary's points.. wealthy and secure people view money as a fun sexy game and increasingly that's how the system is being run. Yet for most people money is basic survival - and the only way most of us have to meet our immediate needs.
Rich secure people are playing games with the thing most of us need to just live day by day. And in the long run more and more of us will lose as this stupid fetishistic game spirals.
We need a currency system that meets people's basic needs, not one that is a plaything for comfortable sociopaths.
I think you've gone way too theoretical here. Sure there are some people who value money for money's sake, but for the vast majority it is a route to agency and security. When looking at the scenario Gary recounts, I think it's far more useful to view the traders at City as a tribe who feel his leaving would be a betrayal. I reject his explanation that they needed him because he was making them lots of money - there will always be another talented grad. I think by leaving he contradicted their value system which places membership of their club at the top, and they wanted to quash that contradiction by making him stay. On the dichotomy of the opposing views presented by the same manager - I think it's simply down to the motivation structure at Citi. Negative technical review, positive high level review. Those meetings probably started out neutral but gradually evolved into their current incarnations to produce the best output from employees.
You didn't read his actual book though, did you? Citibank at this point when he's in Japan has put hin there as punishment, the whole strategy at this point is get him to quit, thereby he would forgo his right to the various bonuses that he achieved. Previously, they would have liked him to stay (recognising his talent) but at this point the meetings etc are all mostly just to force him to attend and then give him confusing and frustrating messaging and to get him to quit. But he wants to hold on and get the money he feels he is due. And I can sympathise, I'd have probably been done the same.
I'd already heard his account of why he was sent to Japan in his recent Novara Media interview. His understanding of all those events is filtered through assumptions about what work and money are - assumptions which I have recently been purging myself of, so I do sympathise with him.
@scruffyuncle Did you hear about the inital very clear threat, about a German who tried to leave and ended up bankrupt through miniscule things that other banks took him to a series of courts for? He said it most clearly, in an international interview, when he says he thinks they thought they could just scare him enough to stay, not knowing how determined he was. Then it spiralled into to that ridiculous mess it became. I am absolutely certain there was power maddened bosses at the point where it spiralled out of control. We can have a slight suspicioun some traces of paranoia, certainly at that mental state, but most of all we cannot underestimate how crazy these kind of bosses can get. Gary has an extremely honest motivation to be honest because his story is only there because it makes people listen. He said that he; maybe not wholly but at least in part; wrote about the traders, and the people in the system, affectionately.
My observation about Gary’s economics is that it seems to be Keynesian focussed with little, or no mention of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) which is not so much a theory, but is actually the way the government creates money. In this respect he always appears behind the curve to me.
You are right. But, no matter how many theories capitalists invent it is evident that all of them will fail and in the end will lead to disaster. People forget that economic laws are the same as physical laws, they are unarguable and non challengable. Try to challenge the gravity law inventing the one that suites you the most and then step out of the skyscraper roof. Well, you will still have some time to reflect on the subject while falling down, try to start a dispute maybe online while you still have time considering the height of the skyscraper. But at the end of your jorney the result will hit you with the force and velocity according to the formula of Newton gravitation velocity. F=mg. Same with the economics. There is a strong evidence that the economic value of any property should be falling proportionally and should decrease in time as everything in this world is ageing and dying by simple observation. If some people invented added value and warped the law to serve their interest, speculating on this, sooner or later they will hit the floor. As the reality will hit them with the same force as gravitation.
This is the first time ive been introduced to this book. It appears there is a lot of nuance to this. In the wiki for libidinal economy. It says Lyotard abandoned the ideas and called the book his evil book. Such a profound shift is interesting on its own.
With all of this it would seem to me that the core of what Gary is saying is still right. Inequality is rising and something needs to be done.
If you substitute the word 'greed' for libidinal charge, this would help. Regarding the point about getting gratification from buying and selling, that is only true for discretionary purchases. Paying the water bill does not make a poor person feel good. Your abstraction does not really deal with inequality in any way.
Amen.
You accept money for work for the same reason you are willing to drive through a green light at a junction, or press the button to call a lift; experience tells you what the result will be.
I agree with you, however, Gary specifically talks about us those of us that are captured by Western capitalism. I don't prefer that model, but we live under it.
Youve missed the point entirely. Gary doesnt care about money, he cares about houses. If you own less than one youre completely fd
How about half a house? Or a third, the middle bit with the front door and hallway, then I can charge a toll for access, Hall Troll says NONE SHALL PASS!
@R53Hole rent seeker !!! 🤣
Interesting thoughts, thanks for sharing them. I've been watching alot of Gary's content recently and alot of it makes sense to me on the face of it. But as with everything I'm trying to look for the things that I do disagree with, or at least the flaws in his thoughts as most people have when explaining their positions on matters.
I think what you said about the way he sees money as a representation of power possibly not being the case, isn't wrong, but also isn't totally accurate. For me it depends on where you look, and which levels of wealth you choose to compare. For example, there is little difference in the power and influence of someone with 100k in the bank vs someone with 1m in the bank, both in terms of purchasing power and in political and social influence. Whereas there is a huge difference in those 3 categories between someone with 1 billion quid. And those powers and influences do increase in line with each other in this system. The evidence of this is the ownership of the popular media, the way political party donations work, and the way in which the moderately wealthy are willing to have their strings pulled in order to gain association and favour from those with immense wealth. Of course, those things are all in direct agreement with your concept of peoples desires. Gary's mission appears to be to impose a limit on the linear progression of those influences in line with purchasing power. In order to stop a complete and entire transfer of wealth from 99% to 1%, which as we know from history always results in instability, violence, and eventually revolution or at the very least some form of tangible breakdown in society.
Completely agree with your assessment that the left are incapable of organising in a fashion which has a serious brand, appeal and an implementable way forward. But I don't think the reason is purely because of their individual libidinal desires to "be the one". I think the reason is that too many people on the left are distracted by too many issues at once, and therefor can't form a coherent plan in order to tackle issues one by one in order of seriousness, and because of most people's resistance to huge amounts of change, never have a palatable proposition. They also have a tendency to be too abusive to people on the right and using terms like racist fascist and nazi way too loosely in order to try and shame people who advocate right wing policies into changing their mind. Which is always going to be met with even more resistance.
I also do think you're right that the left shouldn't be obsessed with "bringing down the system". I do not think it's possible or necessary, but I wouldn't be anywhere close to conceding that the system can't be changed for the better of more people and that we should just accept it in the way that it is.
I have a libidinal desire to thank you for leaving such a thorough and well-considered comment, so cheers for that... I think if we are looking towards libidinal economy for ideas and fresh perspective, then there will be differences between how close each of us are drawn to it. Some, such as Lyotard (well, the Lyotard of 1974 at least) will be so libidinally repulsed by representation, it will be hard to really occupy the same position as them - if only because that would require some minimal attempt to turn that position into something that can be re-presented. For myself, my reading of libidinal economy is not as intense as Lyotard's and I accept that, for some of his fans, I will be reading his work too structurally. Others, and perhaps this is yourself, will draw even less but still draw something from libidinal economy such that it helps you get a fresh perspective on these questions...
Money is a utensil to buy rescources and assets. If you have money in a bank, it's a liability to the bank, not an asset. The wealthiest in the UK have increased their wealth since 2020 and will buy assets with that wealth, making them even wealthier.
We live in a country that needs investment, and that can be achieved as we have a fiat currency, a central bank and the ability to create money to service our requirements. The issue is that the government continue to use neoliberalism to justify their fixation on the fiscal rules. They can change those rules at any point, spending to create jobs, infrastructure, housing and getting returns on those investments through taxation.
A trillion pounds has been created since 2020, but with no analysis as to where it went or who it would end up with. That money is not burnt, it still exists. Taxing that back from those that made gains, is the only way to create a fairer more egalitarian society.
If people unite in their millions and pressure the government to tax corporations and the super wealthy, we can have the change we need.
All these people saying that you Scruffy Uncle have missed the point have, themselves, missed the point, Your critique is high-level and great. Thanks for posting this, I clearly have some reading to do!
Agree. However, Gary is entertaining, and his David and Goliath take on life will be popular. His book is quite cinematic, reminiscent of On the Waterfront, where our hero Marlon Brandon is awakened to the evils of the world. In reality, the film had little to no effect on the indemic corruption it revealed.
I think Gary's story is largely fabricated/overblown
Yeh I like this - I think the forms of motivation are really not explored enough. his story is also a trap for him, it becomes a stupid brand that you have to wear.
I don't think You didn't get the point
Very interesting video, got me thinking and now Ill have to read the libidinal economy.
I sympathize with garys message but i also do not believe it is realistic to hope for a future working class movement based on solidarity, where people come together and recognize their collective interests. Rather, i envision a future where the current social conditions reconfigure of their own accord, irrespective of what individuals want or believe or think (actually i have no idea of what to do politically). I read a few of the books todd mcgowan writes on hegel, and i think it is interesting to consider how entities are always at odds with themselves (puportedly). "Being"is inherently contradictory, or at odds with itself, which explains the gap through which subjectivity (which is also self divided into conscious/unconscious) emerges, and why people invariably expose themselves in unintentional ways through speech.
But i was most interested in the way gary goes about publishing his book, contra just releasing a freebie pdf. Mcgowen compares hegel and heidegger, and their arguably different conceptions of freedom. Hegel accepts the prestegious proffersorship in Berlin, accepting the risk of being misunderstood. Whereas heidegger seemingly more authentically remains in the provinces, before ironically accepting a position granted to him under the third reich.
Mcgowan argues that hegel understands freedom as a positive act wherin you are willing to get your hands dirty and actually try to achieve something in the world, even if you end up being regarded as conformist or a lackey to power.
Heidegger seems to be seduced by the image of the lone rebel, who goes against the crowd, but ironically needs the crowd in order to feel vindicated in his avtions in some sense.
Whether capitalism as such can be surpassed, either through collective human agency or through contingent historical happenstance, the fact that reality itself is contradicory and incomplete in a sense, cannot. It was a mistake on the part of marx to suggest some happy unalienated future after capitalism, unhappiness is the precondition of being a subject, in the doubtful cartesian sense. One is unhappy regardless rergardless of whether we are sngle, or in relationship, or rich or poor. The grass is not greener on the other side, though you likely expend less of your own libidinal energy in chasing images of hapiness, or indeed the compulsion to be happy.
Just my take on the vid, and indeed my incomplete grasp of lacan and hegel no doubt. Capitalism as a system fuelled by libidinal invesment seems entirely plausible to me, though i am currently unfamilliar with the theorist behind it.
Thanks, that's a really interesting point about Hegel/Heidegger and prestige publishing vs pdf. I may even discuss that in a future video. I also like McGowan's work and, in fact, I only started this channel on a whim last year whilst reading his recent book on alienation.
@@scruffyuncle awesome book, and it took a few readings for the implications to sink in. I had also just reread a few snippets on "emancipation after hegel", before you vid popped up. Only happy if the comment struck a chord, i really like reading everything McGowan writes or has written
Interesting that you keep banging on about money and conflating money with asset wealth. Nobody ( Gary included ) sensible has an issue with money ...£1 mill, £4 mill its all the same . The issue is the inequality forced on the average person by those who own 51% of the assets ( land and property in this example ) that is reducing the once middle clasess to poverty and those in poverty into near Serf levels of deprivation. All you are trying to do here is support the status quo
The distinction you and Gary make between money and assets assumes a rational, structural antagonism, but I would push to see how desire itself is entangled in these systems. Financial capitalism doesn’t just exploit inequality-it captures and redirects libidinal energy, even channeling our resentment into its circulatory flow. Perhaps the status quo is best supported not by questioning who owns 51% of the assets, but by sustaining the very framework that makes that question seem like the fundamental one.
The drama seems to be driving the 'economy' The attention economy. As fake as it is, will people withdraw? I have. But I'm older, don't need to engage. Real things still need to be done. There the truth lies. Am I a slave? Why do I work? How do I escape an live my dream?