Living a life that is insecure in significant ways presents multiple burdens and challenges. For example, if I face a potential fall in income it will be difficult for me to make plans for the future. I am also likely to experience increased stress and anxiety, as I anticipate possible hardship and contemplate ways of cushioning myself against it. Importantly these burdens can arise even if the anticipated loss, in fact, never materializes. This paper explores, in particular, the relational implications of risk; I ask how insecurity shapes the way we regard and relate to one another. I show that systems that privatize economic risk tend to undermine the ideal of relational equality: the vision of a society without stigmatizing differences in status and dominating power relations. The argument builds on the powerful general idea that economic security is emancipatory and has the potential to transform human relationships. I develop this fundamental claim by distinguishing five processes by which economic risk threatens relational equality: when economic risk itself becomes a status marker; the activation and reinforcement of other status divisions; the internalization of decision-making within relationships; substitution of favours for entitlements; and the cognitive, time and emotional demands of risk. These dynamics are illustrated with empirical examples from political science, social psychology and sociology. I conclude that we should be concerned, from a relational perspective, not only about the goods that people have, but also about the terms on which they hold them.
