Gary Stevenson – inequality economist, former trader now Youtuber, wealthy although he grew up poor – recently released an important video on his channel Gary’s Economics, entitled “How to Stop the Economy from Collapsing.” I deeply resonated with his message, so I thought I’d amplify it by sharing a bit here, but I also want to lend a critical eye and provide some supplemental points for consideration.
In his video, Gary lays out a succinct, cogent (albeit simplified) semi-bleak analysis of our current predicament – massive wealth inequality that’s moving us closer to the brink of a catastrophic economic collapse where “ordinary families will be driven into poverty and our kids and our grandkids won’t be able to afford homes and financial security.” While many of us would rather ignore the symptoms of the sickness that our global society is exhibiting, it’s increasingly difficult to disregard the dwindling sense of security faced by the majority – people struggling to stay housed, pay all monthly expenses, and still eat.
Gary’s proposed solution? A primarily bottom-up movement that firmly stays and stands on message: “The reason you are getting poorer is because your wealth is being squeezed out by the rich and the super-rich … You are unable to compete with them. The working class is being bankrupted. The middle class is disappearing. Tax wealth, not work.”
Gary is hopeful that message discipline might work to shift the Overton window particularly because well, it’s all just so obviously broken. Politicians at large – on the right and on the left – have lost the thread, allowing the aggressive “impoverishing of their vote base.” They have essentially enabled rampant exploitation of working and middle-class capital at levels that haven’t been seen in generations.
Correction. That some of us haven’t seen in generations. Let the record reflect that some of us have been out here, experiencing exploitation. In fact, some of us are downright familiar with these distasteful displays of moral corruption. Today’s predation of the majority is right on par with the insidious behavior Black and Brown folx have been forced to bear witness to for centuries while serving as the proverbial canaries in the coalmine for most of this Country’s history.
Politicians actively passing and tacitly agreeing to legislation that opposes the collective accension and wellbeing of an entire class of people? Ain’t nothing new about that to us.
We are well acquainted and versed with the slow – legal yet lethal – violence of harmful policies, practices, and even Constitutional Amendments like the 13th allowing slavery by another name, redlining, predatory lending, and the denial of legitimate health, mortgage, and rental insurance claims. And we would be remis if we did not mention old “friends” – enforcement and adjudication – that are so frequently deployed to demand compliance with those unfair conditions. Frankly, we’ve been over here bewildered and bothered by this counter-productive degradation of the masses solely benefiting a small fraction for a minute. I guess a “welcome” is in order to this Bleak House, Dickensian reality you have been invited to revisit.
I also want to extend another invitation – maybe even to the cookout – a place where you’ll receive an actual welcome – a warm not hollow one. Here, you can pull up a chair, grab a plate, settle in, and listen. Because we know a thing or two about survival.
We have collective wisdom we are willing to share about enduring the madness of greed.
- When the State is complicit, consistently failing to be a reliable partner despite sworn proclamations of equality, liberty, and justice for all, we develop solutions. We share. We become each other’s keepers (you remember that white, folding chair). We march. We even have a mantra – “we keep us safe.” And when we show up, we show out. Check out the documentary and podcast One Million Experiments – examples of (largely un-resourced but effective) networks for communal safety, accountability, and care.
And Gary, if your prediction of a win ultimately proves false because we simply can’t get it together – and we fail to fulfil Fred Hampton’s rainbow coalition vision – then rest assured, we’re already on it, always cooking up something.
Here’s a brief synopsis of the theory/praxis underlying some of those one million experiments – transformative justice. Collective Justice defines transformative justice as: a political framework for responding to harm without creating more harm. But for many, it’s honestly less justice paradigm and just the way we handle our business. In short, it’s “grassroots organizing for community safety.” Speaking on the origins of the movement, practitioners Sonya Shah and Cameron Rasmussen explain that it was “Initiated by primarily Black women, women of color, domestic and sexual violence survivors, and queer communities, many of whom were survivors of violence. Together, they sought non-dominating, nonpunitive approaches to justice entirely outside of the criminal legal system. TJ was conceived as both a relational and political approach to justice that understood punishment and the criminal legal system itself as inherently harmful.”
Transformative justice practitioners employ community-based interventions, entrusting everyday folks – “family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, members of community organizations, such as faith institutions, civil organizations or businesses” – to pro and retro-actively, directly own the conflicts impacting their communities. In this model, community is not additive or ancillary but essential. The community takes ownership of and serves itself, fulfilling all roles – especially the ones typically abdicated and ascribed to systems professionals like law enforcement, judges, probation officers, family regulation case workers, etc. I know this might sound radical to some, but I again invite you to listen and marvel at what a small group of interdependent humans can do. Tune into the podcast and learn about myriad advancements across several sectors – in education and recreation, food and environmental justice, children and families, healing and collective care, reproductive justice, gender justice, economic justice, and transforming harm.
So, I’m going to wrap this up with a yes, and. Yes. Let’s shift that Overton window: Tax wealth, not work. It’s far past time to hold the wealthy accountable, paying their fair share for what is extracted. And. Y’all are welcome to join us anytime. Let’s pool those resources and get to work, augmenting what we’ve already been doing – building stronger and safer communities for us all to inhabit.