There’s not that much wealth in the world.

This fundamentally misunderstands how wealth works and what it is based on. It’s just all kinds of wrong, like most things Noah Smith writes about economics. It’s interesting that when he writes about science, politics or policy outside of economics he’s usually correct. But about economics (his actual profession), it’s always just wildly incorrect assertions and ideas.

That is, though, how the entire mainstream econ field operates so no surprise I guess.