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Risk becomes a vehicle by which privilege reinforces itself – only the privileged can take risks and only risk is rewarded. Which is not to say we should all be
by colemannugent 9y ago
Risk becomes a vehicle by which privilege reinforces itself – only the privileged can take risks and only risk is rewarded. Which is not to say we should all be cautious and people or institutions should never venture to do unusual things.
I agree with what the author is trying to say here, but disagree with the second part of the first sentence. Everyone can take risks, and risk is not the only factor that determines reward.
Anyone can take risks, but me investing half my net worth into a company is fundamentally different than Elon Musk throwing half of his into a business venture. While we both would essentially be betting the same 50%, taking 50% from me might put me into financial hardship while Musk, though I'm sure he would be very upset about it, would not struggle to make ends meet.
Say both of our 50% bets paid off and we made a 5x return on investment, that would immediately put me into a higher tier of quality of life, while Musk is still just another billionaire. In this example I, the comparatively less privileged, have far more to gain than the more privileged Musk.
From a purely financial standpoint Musk seems to come out better in terms of risk to reward ratio, but there is more than just money at play in our internal risk evaluation strategies.
- glhaynes 9y agoIt seems like you're agreeing with what's being quoted: risk of any sort is, well, riskier (in many cases, impossible) for the unprivileged. Maybe I'm misreading you or the quoted part.
- oconnor663 9y agoI was about to say the same, but on a second reading the language is really extreme: > only the privileged can take risks I guess that could be true if we take a position like "everyone is privileged to some degree", but that's not really what anyone means when they say "the privileged", and it would make the whole line meaningless anyway.
- colemannugent 9y agoThis is what I was disagreeing with. People are allowed to take risks who are not part of "the privileged", else we wouldn't have terms like "self-made millionaire".
- hndamien 9y agoIt comes down to a multiplier effect. If you have no privilege, your multiplier is 0 or inconsequentially small as a risk multiplier for the amount of risk you can feasibly take.
- davesque 9y agoIf your lower end is someone who would be placed into financial hardship by losing 50% of their net worth and your higher end is Elon Musk, you use only the two most extreme examples to make your point. There are plenty of lower-tier rich (millionaires) who would stand to gain far more and lose far less (relatively speaking) than the average person by taking risks. Also, I'm not really sure just what point you're trying to make. Much of what you say seems to corroborate the author's opinion.
- colemannugent 9y ago" someone who would be placed into financial hardship by losing 50% of their net worth" would include most people in my estimation. Since privilege is relative, I used someone who is privileged relative to most people. The author claimed that "only the privileged can take risks", I demonstrated a situation where that isn't true. Aside from that sentence, I mainly agreed with the author.
- sidlls 9y agoThe lower end extreme on this scale isn't financial hardship for risking 50% of net wealth, it's someone who has no net wealth and little income. In America especially that person's risk profile typically includes "avoid getting a cold" and "start a business" barely registers as a thing.
- fleitz 9y agoI only found out I was underprivileged (grew up not so well off, no formal education, etc) when I started talking to the privileged. Once I became successful, those same people said I wasn't underprivileged anymore, but was privileged (parents didn't divorce, white, male, etc).
- tempYeez 9y agoYou're thinking too big. Imagine failing, and what your choices would be. If you'd have a guaranteed home then you're ahead of some. I've known people in SV who lived in trailers who want to become entrepreneurs and can't really go home.