ABSTRACT
In his seminal work on risk society, Ulrich Beck writes, “In advanced modernity the social production of wealth is systematically accompanied by the social production of risk” (Beck 1992: 19). While Beck’s proposition accurately describes risk relations in advanced modernity, a compelling question arises: how should we characterize the social production of risk in less advanced modernity in which the majority of the world’s population lives? Does Beck’s statement imply that less advanced modernity faces less risk? To modify Beck, I argue that in less advanced modernity the social production of wealth is systematically surpassed by the social production of risk. To put this differently, as the result of structural factors, the introduction of complex technologies in the global south leads risk to grow faster than wealth in that part of the world.
