The other day, one of my clients admitted he was afraid he felt vulnerable and defenseless in the event armed robbers invaded his property.

When he said this, I thought about the execution of the nobility during the French Revolution, the Bolshevik slaughter of the Romanov family, and the hushed up murder of the 84-year-old widow of the painter Wassily Kandinsky in Gstaad. In our times, I have to admit that during the days of the George Floyd violence, I set my burglar alarm at night and was on the verge of buying a gun, which a friend in Seattle ended up doing.

Visible wealth makes you a target. The client I mention above appears modest on the outside, but he does live on a large property, which is in itself a sign of wealth....

A narrated essay from The Pressures of Privilege.
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