Aidan Regan: Wall Street’s aristocrats prepare to head off barbarians at the gate

Last week proved that Reddit’s 'degenerates’ can beat professional investors at their own game. But for how long?

A group of demonstrators outside the New York Stock Exchange building protest Robinhood’s decision to suspend trading of GameStop shares Picture: Getty

One of the biggest puzzles in the study of capitalist democracy is that, if there are more poor people than rich people, why don’t the poor soak the rich? If everyone has a vote, why don’t the majority of people vote to redistribute wealth?

This is why the idea of democracy terrified the aristocratic gentry in the late 19th century, and the capital-owning class in the early 20th century. It’s also why Wall Street aristocrats ...