Financial Foundations Build Power

For those who see the injustice of our systems, a solid financial foundation is instrumental for building power to create change.

I’ll analogize to martial arts (I saw The Karate Kid when I was five, signed up for karate classes the next week, and have been training in some martial art ever since, so it’s something I’ve got experience with). When you throw a punch, you don’t generate power with just your arm. Power comes from the ground. You push against the ground to initiate movement of all of your mass; you transmit and amplify that motion through your body’s kinetic chain; then the energy concentrates in your fist, ready to land with real impact. Without a stable foundation and your feet underneath you, generating power is much more difficult.

Think about your experiences with trying to create change and how financial concerns may have impacted them. If you have to work two jobs, you don’t have as much time or energy for advocacy. If you have a lot of debt, it can occupy your mind, draining you. If you can’t afford to lose a job, it becomes much harder to criticize workplace policies at that job. I have heard from colleagues, members of marginalized communities, who have kept quiet about certain questions because they feared a loss of position or retaliation.

Constant financial precarity for the majority is a strategy to maintain the status quo. Precarity doesn’t mean you’re powerless of course. There are plenty of people who are courageous and effective advocates even when they stand to lose everything. For many, however, justified concerns about providing for themselves or their families can be an inhibition.

One always has to choose one’s battles to some extent, but when money is less of a concern, the calculus is different. Someone remarked to me while expressing frustration with racism in the workplace, “If I had ‘F you’ money, I’d move differently.” Most of the aspirational trappings of wealth peddled to us are worthless or worse, but that ability to move differently is very valuable.

That’s one of the missions of Cone Wealth, to help build financial foundations for those fighting for justice, so that they can push more fearlessly for a better society.

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The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent Belpointe's positions, strategies or opinions.