Downstream: The Middle Class Will Collapse Unless We Tax the Rich w/ Gary Stevenson

**Aaron Bastani** (0:08)
I first met today's guest on this show four years ago in 2022 Back then, very few people had heard of him. He had a YouTube channel. It wasn't very big. He was writing a book, but nobody was really sure if it was actually gonna be worth reading. Since then, a lot has changed. Slight understatement. His book, The Trading Game, was a Sunday Times bestseller out in hardback, also in paperback. That's when it did really well as a paperback. It flew, and he's so influential. He's so of the zeitgeist. He's even taken over this week's edition of The Big Issue. Gary says, Wealth Tax guest editor, Gary Stevenson.
So he's gone from someone you probably haven't heard of, a marginal influencer on social media, to someone very much at the heart of our public conversation. He's on Piers Morgan's show. He's on Newsnight. He's on pretty much every TV show you'll watch. He's had a bestselling book. His YouTube channel, and this pains me to say it, is even bigger than ours here at Novara Media.
It's got about 1.6 million subscribers. He has been unique in selling the argument about asset and wealth inequality and how it's only going to get worse. This issue, more than anything else, is going to critically undermine democracy, liberal society, if we don't do something about it. But here's what's really interesting. The bigger Gary Stevenson has become, the more widespread his arguments have proven, the stronger the counterpoints, the more vitriolic the arguments against him, often personal.
So the more we hear about our wealth tax, the more we hear about Mr. Stevenson and his diagnosis of the economy, the more we hear the other side as well. So we thought it's high time we got Gary Stevenson back in at Novara Towers to have a conversation about the problems but also the solution he wants to talk about, that important wealth tax and the changing character of the people he's up against.
Gary Stevenson, welcome back to Downstream.

**Gary Stevenson** (2:14)
Thanks for having me back.

**Aaron Bastani** (2:15)
It's the fourth time.

**Gary Stevenson** (2:17)
Yeah, fourth time. Fourth time in four years, yeah. Once a year, annual me and you.

**Aaron Bastani** (2:21)
The message always stays the same.

**Gary Stevenson** (2:23)
Well, I think I like to think it evolves a little bit, but you know, repetition is part of the game.

**Aaron Bastani** (2:28)
You're very good at that.

**Gary Stevenson** (2:29)
Yeah.

**Aaron Bastani** (2:29)
The hook for our conversation today isn't a new book, isn't a paperback, it's an event on TV. You just dropped a documentary with Channel 4

**Gary Stevenson** (2:39)
Yeah.

**Aaron Bastani** (2:40)
Tell me a little bit about it. How did you find making a documentary as well compared to a book?

**Gary Stevenson** (2:44)
Painful. It's painful. Documentary.
It was interesting to me to do something more collaborative because my YouTube and my book, it's just me. You know what I mean? It's all me. So it was nice to do something a bit more collaborative. Yeah, I didn't enjoy spending time with the energies of some of the people I had to spend. Samuel Leeds, one of the guys, I was with him for five hours, six hours.
It was like, you end the day thoroughly depleted and depressed. But I'm proud of the documentary. I think it's good. It's coming out at an interesting time, obviously, because the Prime Minister is changing. We're in the middle of a national conversation about where do we go from here, what do we change? Whether it gets me the ability to influence the new Prime Minister or not, I don't know. But look, it was hard work. I'm proud of it. It's a new creative product. I hope people watch it and I hope it can influence the conversation and reach new people who might not know about my work up till now.

**Aaron Bastani** (3:43)
Did you learn anything making the documentary? I don't want to dwell on it too long in terms of the process, but it's obviously different to YouTube, right? You don't have people answering back.

**Gary Stevenson** (3:51)
Yes. The production company is called Mindhouse. It's Louis Theroux's company. Obviously, he's the most famous documentary maker, I guess other than David Attenborough. They taught me the Louis Theroux style of interviewing, which is like, basically don't be a dick really early on. Try and give them ropes to hang themselves with, try and get them talking. I think it taught me to be a better interviewer. It's a skill, isn't it? Trying to get people to show themselves, get people to open up, show some of their personality.