Well, when I thought of this topic, I had an inkling that this post will not be well received. I think one of the main reasons is that most people think that the money that they have legally is their legal possession hence it should not be considered as stewardship. While I do want to retain legal possession of the money I have in my bank, I do not agree that possession equates to complete right to use it for yourself. Thats basically the gist of this post but there is a little more to it than just saying that we should “share” what we have and I would like to share more about this in today’s post.

The ability to earn more does not give you the right to spent more

Let’s get the obvious reason why I am writing this post out of the way. As a sociology student, I am all for social equality, not in a Marxian way, but more of just appreciating that the world is indeed unfair hence, it is in our interest to restore some level of balance for those who are less privileged in your society. In other to achieve this, it is necessary for you to be economically impactful and that requires you to be a better earner in some respect. A slight issue might arise when you get to a certain level of wealth and start ignoring the ideas of rebalancing by justifying why people in the lower strata of society does not deserve to live better.

All good earners need to recognise needs of people around them

Trading might not be the easiest job to do to earn a living cause of the high risk and uncertainty caused by various socio-political factors but it can potentially create higher returns compared to regular office jobs. As such, traders might be cognisant about this and think of ways to balance such unfairness with respect to their relationships with others around them. One way to balance this is to spend on creating new and valuable experiences for close friends and family so that more people can see the other sides of society not to indulge but to understand the world on “the other side.”

Traders are merely movers in the market

We are at the crux of the post. I think trading as an occupation does bring some value to the table and that is to reallocate assets namely, cash and credit across different assets, classes and markets. Even though this is extremely important to ensure proper distribution and asset prices, this does not inherently create value. Therefore, traders should not see their job as something that should demand high returns for themselves and their spending. Even if they are good at detecting imbalances and inaccuracies in certain assets, they are merely making the difference to help the market stay liquid for stability sake.

Closing thoughts

So do you think traders are stewards or not? I think most traders will not agree with this post and quietly believe in the “every man or woman for himself or herself” ideology that capitalist societies have been selling for decades. Having said that, I do hope that traders will develop some additional empathy for others around them so that they can bring about a greater sense of purpose for themselves and positive impact for people around them.