ABSTRACT
This chapter evaluates risk in terms of on whether a loss has occurred or not. Risk calculation forms part of a historical machine that always proceeds on the basis of its present state, that clings to accepted or rejected risks too long, revises judgement after the event or, anticipating that this can happen, becomes still more uncertain of itself. The injunction contained in modern time structuring with its dual modality to draw a distinction between past, present and future presents, and thus to discount the past and future horizons of the operative present, encourages a thinking no longer amenable to any rational calculus. Like the present, evaluation of risk can shift in the course of time, and like the present it can reflect itself in the time horizons of the past and the future. The chapter draws attention to conditions in the money economy, where variable prices make all economic behaviour a risk.
