In his seminal work, Capitalist Realism, the late theorist Mark Fisher argued that a defining aspect of modern capitalism was its capacity to crush imagination. To inculcate an ennui so powerful as to make economic critique powerless and alternate realities not just unattainable, but inconceivable. Sometimes this attitude finds its expression implicitly, as people increasingly base their self-worth on consumption and luxury brands. And sometimes it appears explicitly, as when a man with a lanyard tells you all is well when the 50 wealthiest families in Britain are as rich as the poorest 34 million people and that, either way, a wealth tax would lead to capital flight. Sometimes the shadow home secretary screams at you on live radio for suggesting a more meritocratic tax system would tax 100 per cent of inheritances above £10 million.
I am, of course, meandering through to a defence of Gary Stevenson who, in recent weeks, presented a documentary on Channel 4 about wealth inequality, inspired a solid discourse war about the efficacies of wealth taxes, and has since announced that he will take a break from publishing videos to his enormously popular YouTube channel. (In between all of that he had to endure an hour’s worth of conversation with me, which you should listen to on our interview podcast The Exchange.)
Having experienced multiple internet firestorms of varying severity, on occasion even as savage as that which recently engulfed Gary, I understand the urge to disengage. I prefer to switch my phone off for a day or two and either do something entirely wholesome or entirely destructive. Kill off a few brain cells in Corsica Studios and hopefully the memory of what’s happening on Twitter gets chalked up as collateral damage. Or go sea fishing, like I did last week. Two bream grilled whole over an open fire, and topped with a caper lemon butter – that did the trick.
Yes, there are boasts in Gary’s claims about his trading successes. I’ve asked him about them in a previous interview and thought his explanation was patchy. Yes, in his documentary Gary’s ideas were convincingly challenged by tax expert Dan Neidle. So what? Politics is not primary school maths. Many of our problems have multiple solutions and the whole point is contestation and argument. He is also not the first person, nor will he be the last, to embellish their CV.
This month (on 15 July), our new Prime Minister gave his first extended interview to Gary Lineker, who can be described fairly as one of the most recognisable and influential people in Britain, partially thanks to his podcasting empire and partially to his minor spell as one of the greatest goal-scoring poachers in world football. Last week (on 23 July) he made front page news, along with 120 other millionaires, calling on Andy Burnham to implement Gary Stevenson’s flagship idea: wealth taxes. No disrespect to Dan Neidle – he’s done some good work investigating the tax affairs of high profile politicians, but he’s never presented Match of the Day and is not a household name outside of Westminster, if he even is there. On a recent podcast, the political editor of the Spectator repeatedly mispronounced his name. Scrolling X last week, you’d think one of the sides in this debate had won a complete cultural victory, and it wasn’t Gary Lineker’s.
This I know: the United Kingdom is in the grip of an economic sickness. When the Sunday Times began compiling its Rich List in 1989, the 200 wealthiest families in Britain owned wealth equivalent to about 5 per cent of GDP. Today, the corresponding group owns the equivalent of 25 per cent. In Spain, as the Hormuz oil crisis deepened, energy prices decreased thanks to a sprawling solar network. Following the wettest winter on record, the gardens of more than 20 million people in Britain are labouring under a hosepipe ban. This might be connected to the fact that the owners of our water companies have preferred to relentlessly pay themselves dividends, and indebt their companies in the process, than invest in infrastructure and build some reservoirs. Imagine that: building a single reservoir since 1992. Imagine that: abundant green energy. Imagine that: a wealth tax.
Now, imagine a world in which you proportionally pay less tax if you are wealthy. A world where idiots like you and me pay a percentage of our income, perhaps more than 50 per cent of it, to the tax man because we earn instead of own. A world where on occasion men worth $18 billion receive $4,000 in child tax credits, as Jeff Bezos did in 2011. Well you don’t need to imagine it because it’s the world we live in. And therefore I don’t think it’s crazy to suggest that wealthy people should pay their fair share of tax, let’s say a minimum every year, like, as Stevenson suggests, 2 per cent of their total holdings.
If you disagree – if you think the medicine should be different – that’s your prerogative. The point is, none of these ideas are particularly revelatory. In fact, we already tax people’s wealth at their time of death. We call it an inheritance tax. Some countries prevent capital flight by implementing a global tax rate; your American citizenship is contingent on you paying it. The truth is that furious chorus you can hear of “Well, no actually,” is the swan song of terrified vested interests. They are scared of your imagination, of your “working class rage”.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, a meme went viral. On the one side of an image an exceptionally muscular dog, Swole Doge, represented a version of something that was better in the past. Next to him, a shiba inu, Cheems, appearing anxious and recoiling, was its modern form. People claiming to be patriots now argue in favour of a status quo that sees monopolistic global corporations and their zillionaire owners mug off the populations of entire countries. Some people were and are capable of imagining a better world. Gary Stevenson is one of them.
[Further reading: At last, a government that looks like it’s trying]
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Subscribe here to commentI totally agree with Gary Stevenson. I too am from a working class background, got educated, worked in the private sector and have no problem paying tax. The problem is enough of the population have voted for free market economics and neoliberalism over the past 40 years and expect lower taxes. Watch Good Morning Britain or listen to Heart Radio and you will find the endless phone in competitions to win ‘life-changing’ tax free sums of money up to £1million. This probably passes for financial planning for the majority of the population. Our society has been transformed from just about viewing taxes for the benefit of all to taxes are really bad and you should keep all your money. Opinion polls on a wealth tax are one thing – it’s other people’s money – the real test is how people vote in elections. That’s how the rich keep their money – they get the average punter to agree with them and vote in neoliberal politicians time and time again. The odd Labour government every now and then is going to have a dificult job redressing the balance. Even Labour have to ape neoliberal policies to get elected! It may take something much more drastic to change the perception of the general public.In the meantime I wish Gary every success.
I completely agree. Anyone calling him economically illiterate needs to take the time to understand the argument rather than just nod along to the headlines (as published by those with a vested interest in undermining him)
Investment will come as long as the infrastructure is there to support it. A population with increased spending power will drive the good type of growth (that which increases the velocity of money). Gary’s analysis and argument has convinced me. Don’t let Andy Burnham fool you into thinking he has listened. We need a serious conversation about wealth tax. Before the infrastructure and spending power collapses.
Where Gary Stevenson is very compelling is in his arguement that extreme wealth in the hands of a few actively impoverishes eveyone else, including the upper middle, and governements. The exponential demand for increasingly over priced assets by a small minority sucks wealth away from everyone else. The result is not just inequality, but social and democratic degeneration. Furthermore the investment choices of the billionaires (AI, telephony, Mars missions) ignore the needs of millions of people who live without clean water and other fundamentals. Even in the rich UK! Keep going Gary.
Stevenson is a bore. His book is all about how marvellous he was to be a successful FX trader and make his fortune. (My wife was given it for her birthday – lol).
His insight into political economy is limited, as shown in his embarrassing recent C4 documentary.
Is Gary Stevenson Owen Jones twin brother? Anyway, this article is economically illiterate. The only way out of the economic mess we are in is growth. Some wealth is owning a business that employs people. How many people lose their jobs to pay the 2% wealth tax by the business oweners, assuming the business owners do not move themselves to Jersey and outsource emplyment to India. Think software company.
We live in one of the wealthiest societies in the history of humanity. Were that wealth taxed properly, want could be eliminated entirely.
I can’t help recalling “It’s your bloody GDP, not ours”.
It is absolutely essential that taxation be more equitable. However, one of the biggest obstacles to a sensible discussion is the widespread belief that taxes fund government spending. They don’t, when the government spends it creates new money – there is no “current account” that is topped up by tax receipts. Government finances are absolutely NOT like a household, they are the total opposite.
The prime purpose of taxation is to withdraw excess money from the economy, primarily to prevent the inflation that would occur if government just kept spending without it. Tax receipts simply cancel (i.e. destroy) the money received.
So there does need to be a balance between spending and taxation, but understanding the true mechanism avoids various specious arguments, such as “we will fund X by increasing the tax on Y”; this frequently leads to indignant protests by those most affected by the tax increase: “I object to paying this tax, X doesn’t benefit me”. There is no connection between any specific tax and any specific spending.
Another idea it should dispell is the idea of actually owning money. The government essentially injects money into the economy to make trade and commerce possible. Money works when it circulates, and is used to pay people so they can purchase goods and services. Individuals get rich by hoarding it – the wealthy don’t “make money” (government does that), they simply keep more than their fair share. The trope “tax is theft” is a nonsense, all of that money is not actually property, it’s a public resource, and if you try to hang onto too much of it you should expect to be asked to give some back.
With a proper understanding of how taxation doesn’t fund spending, and how money actually works, the proposition that those who hoard large amounts of it should pay more back in taxes becomes a no-brainer.
This is a very silly article