Michael Matulef on Nostr: Perhaps the most important thing about risk is its inescapability. Particular ...

Perhaps the most important thing about risk is its inescapability. Particular individuals, groups, or institutions may be sheltered from risk - but only at the cost of having someone else bear that risk. For a society as a whole, there is no someone else. Obvious as this may seem, it is easy to forget, especially by those who are sheltered from risk, as many are, to varying degrees. At one time, when most people were engaged in farming, risk was as widely perceived as it was pervasive: droughts, floods, insects, and plant diseases were just some of the risks of nature, while economic risks hung over each farmer in the form of the uncertainties about the price that the crop would bring at harvest time. Risks are no less pervasive today but the perception of them, and an understanding of their inescapability, are not, because fewer people are forced to face those risks themselves.


~ Thomas Sowell