Of course the notion of bearing risk isn’t meaningless as such. However, it seems to be something of an ideological concept which is, in the minds of most, applied to the type of small business venture which you gave an example of.

After this financial crisis - and I would argue even before - the way we conceive of how “risk” is used to run the economy needs to be seriously called into question. The notion of “risk” was employed in order to secure dodgy loans through the use of Credit Default Swaps. What nobody asked was: who exactly is going to bear the brunt of this risk? Who exactly is securing these loans? The answer now is clear….. everybody and nobody!!!

I would argue that the ideological notion of a “risk-based” society (I think Giddens came up with this) is extremely dangerous. Not only does it lead to manic investment-gambling and extremely bad financial decisions, but it also plays into a whole other host of illusions. For one, that a deregulated economy is both functional and desirable, which I would argue it is neither. Secondly, it gives our average Joe Soap the belief that those who dare win. This is extremely unfair because it is blatently untrue… I would see it as an ideological manifestation employed to block people’s ability to recognise both their true class position.

Even on a psychological level this is repulsive. The Beeb came out with an article last week sometime saying that repossesions were likely to cause a surge in mental health problems for those affected. This is not surprising… a man’s home is his castle after all. What is really ghastly is that, due to an ideological conception of risk, many people will come to blame themselves for their failure to secure their families a place to live!

The notion of risk therefore may not be completely nonsensical, but as a predominant ideological notion it is completely toxic…

It does seem to be the case at all levels of society that the number of people who can be bothered to do this kind of thing, and risk going bust and staying awake at night worrying about it etc is very small (5% sounds right to me), and the sum total of what they do is not destructive at all. They make it possible for others to walk out of work and forget all about it, and spend the evening writing badly argued comments on blogs. The fact that there may be developers who make a killing because they have rigged the system doesn’t mean the entire concept of bearing risk is meaningless and doesn’t contribute to society.