Note: this post is my personal opinion and researched, but references are not included. This is also a hypothetical. I am not suggesting we are here right now in this country or that either party is to blame. Take from it what you will!
We often talk about financial independence as freedom: freedom from jobs we dislike, freedom to pursue passions, freedom to live life on our own terms. But there’s another, less romantic reason to pursue it: risk mitigation.
Money can be a buffer against life’s blows. Get into a car accident and face a mountain of medical bills? If you’re financially independent, you can weather it. Go through a divorce? Financial independence won’t save you from the heartbreak, but it can cushion the practical fallout.
I think of these situations as white swan events—disruptive, painful, but fairly common. We all know people who have faced them. By contrast, black swan events are rare, unpredictable, and devastating. And they raise a harder question: can money protect us then?
Lately, I’ve been thinking about black swan events in the political sphere. The U.S. feels divided, and depending on your perspective, you may have felt deeply uneasy in recent years—whether during the political climate of 2020–2024, or during the years since. Politics aside, it’s hard to shake the sense that if something truly destabilizing were to happen, many of us would be caught unprepared.
So here’s the question I can’t stop asking: in times of political chaos, can financial independence save us? Especially, if you are in an at-risk class.
Lessons from Nazi Germany
The most obvious historical example is Nazi Germany. Suppose you were a wealthy Jewish family in the 1930s and 40s. Could your wealth have saved you from the Holocaust?
The answer is complicated. For some, it did…at least briefly. Families with means were better positioned to see the danger early. They could purchase foreign visas, bribe officials, or buy passage to other countries. They were more likely to have connections abroad. Wealth could also be used, in the short term, to secure food, bribe guards, or find shelter with sympathetic families.
But here’s the key: timing mattered. It was a first-mover advantage. Those who acted quickly sometimes managed to escape. Those who hesitated, even slightly, often found their assets stripped by the regime. In fact, the Nazis specifically targeted wealthy Jewish families first, confiscating property and savings.
So yes. Money could buy safety at the very beginning. But once the machinery of extermination was in place, wealth offered little protection. If you weren’t already out, you were in peril no matter your bank account.
Rwanda, 1994
Jump forward half a century to the Rwandan genocide. Here, wealth mattered even less. When the violence began in 1994, it was sweeping and indiscriminate. Tutsi families, whether rich or poor, were targeted. Many wealthy Tutsis were singled out, not for survival, but because militias looted their homes and businesses.
Could money help? Only if you had already anticipated what was coming and fled in advance. Once the killing started, class offered no shield.
Syria, 2011
The Syrian Civil War offers another lesson. When protests escalated into conflict in 2011, wealthier families were often the first to escape. They could afford smugglers, airline tickets, and foreign visas. They relocated to Europe, the Gulf States, or North America before borders tightened.
But again, this advantage was short-lived. For the millions who stayed too long, wealth couldn’t keep bombs from falling or militias from advancing. Once you were trapped inside, survival depended more on luck, location, and connections than on money.
India, 1947
The Partition of India tells a similar story. As British India split into India and Pakistan, mass migrations triggered horrific communal violence. Here, too, wealth occasionally helped. Some families paid for safer transport, private guards, or resettlement.
But religious identity overrode class. Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims were slaughtered regardless of wealth. Rich or poor, belonging to the “wrong” community in the wrong place meant danger.
The Pattern
Looking across these histories, a pattern emerges:
Wealth helps early. If you see the danger soon enough, money can buy exit routes, safety, or temporary shelter.
Wealth attracts attention. Once violence escalates, the wealthy may be targeted first, both for their resources and their status.
Wealth stops mattering. In full-scale chaos—whether genocide, civil war, or mass displacement—money rarely guarantees survival. Other factors, like identity, social capital, timing, and sheer luck, matter far more.
Wealth matters again afterward. Survivors with resources abroad, reparations, or diaspora networks often rebuild faster, while others remain trapped in poverty and trauma.
What This Means for Us
So, back to the present. Many of us pursue financial independence partly because we hope it will insulate us from disaster. And to some extent, it can. In everyday life, money provides real resilience.
But if we widen our lens to black swan political events, the story shifts. Money alone is not enough. You need timing, awareness, and sometimes, the painful willingness to act before the threat feels undeniable.
Most of us don’t have the foresight, or the luck, to move that quickly. And if the chaos is severe enough, no amount of wealth will matter.
That doesn’t mean financial independence is pointless. Far from it. It still buys you options, flexibility, and resilience in a thousand ways. It may even give you a window of opportunity in the early stages of upheaval. But it is not an invincible shield.
Closing Thoughts
I started this reflection with a simple question: will your money save you? History suggests the answer is “sometimes”, but only at the margins, and only if you act early.
The deeper lesson may be this: financial independence is a powerful form of risk mitigation, but it is not the only one. Social capital, community trust, and situational awareness matter just as much, if not more, when the world tilts toward chaos.
And so, yes, pursue financial independence. Save, invest, build a buffer. But don’t assume that money alone can carry you through every storm.
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Nice article. Love the historical context of the limitations of financial independence to protect us from black swans and how other forms of capital like social capital are critical in tomes of chaos. The cash flow analogy would be “multiple streams of income”
I agree that independence doesn't = certainty, especially in these black swan events.
What I am grateful for, right now, is that my income is not at risk based on my beliefs or opinions (at least yet). Over the last decade, we've seen people on both sides of the spectrum, lose their jobs because of their beliefs.
While I'm not an outwardly political person, nor give dicey opinionated takes on much of anything controversial... I do remember feeling, while employed, I had to censor myself. I had to be careful about what I said or commented on. But independence can help, in the period leading up to the black swan events.
Scott Galloway said it best: "I have two huge blessings: I’m economically secure and I have people who love me unconditionally. And I think when you have those two things, you the privilege and obligation to speak your mind.”