We've all heard the phrase "There's nothing more dangerous than a man with nothing to lose." and I believe this is one of the most dangerous sentences in the English language. The reason being that people have developed the belief that they need something they can't afford to lose; that they need leverage which can be used against them should they not comply with the institutions which aim to control them. It's not to the benefit of those who wish to control you for you to not have leverage to demand your compliance. After all, how many times have you heard something like "Unlike you, I have something to lose."?
A big reason for passivity within societies is this leverage over people. A man with a family to feed isn't going to resist the abuses they face or stop the abuses they commit if it risks their family suffering. A selfish man isn't going to resist or stop abuses if they've benefited from their reliance on abusive systems. As an example, how many of you are tired of insurance companies ruining your lives, causing greater and greater financial burdens on you and your families, tired of the fact that a lot of harmful regulation and legal requirements to shell out a privatised tax is because of these insidious organizations that have lobbied their way into legal mandates? The vast majority of the people involved in this evil are people with families to feed. It doesn't matter if they recognize they are working for institutions which have caused great societal harm to their brethren; they still have a family to feed, something to lose and they are reliant on the resources they obtain by working for such organizations.
Apply this to any institution or industry you think is of great harm. The people who work for evil aren't usually consciously doing it for their benefit or even because they think they're doing good, they do it because they have something to lose and are reliant on said evil to keep what they have. Even if you recognize the harm your work does, can you even work somewhere that doesn't cause harm especially if you've sunk so many resources such as attending college to work where you are? Even if you have nothing material to lose, the time you spent to achieve where you are could still be lost.
Another example that exemplifies this is with how even the institutions which many may find to be good are affected by this and corrupted to cause harm. The first example I realized this applies to is the police even if you are completely pro-cop. I have often heard people who love the police whine and complain when laws they think are unjust or violate more fundamental rights are put into effect. They then chastise or praise the police depending on how they respond to said laws, condemning the police they usually love if they enforce the law or praising them if they make a statement saying they won't. However, police are still beholden to executing the law. If a cop won't comply with enforcing an unjust law, they will be punished and replaced with one who will. What feeds their families and pays their bills is doing the will of the law regardless of how just or unjust it is.
Furthermore onto legality and its resulting passivity, people keep complying with unjust laws or submit to being bullied by entities who threaten legal action out of fear of being sued or charged resulting in having their resources taken away. Many regulations exist requiring that you have resources for basic survival requirements all the while other regulations exist so you can have your resources taken away should you not be compliant. It is a cycle requiring that you always have leverage against you and if you don't have this leverage, you aren't allowed to be a functional member of society. I also discuss this in Regulation Creates Homelessness.
Perhaps it is true that there's nothing more dangerous than a man with nothing to lose but that man is a free man; that man doesn't have leverage that can be used against him to be compliant with the evils of the world and what he decides to do with that freedom is his choice.
Written 2026-5-19 Published 2026-6-1