Insecure Wealth: The Newly Rich and Their Strategies to Secure Their Fortunes

Karen Lillie

The rise of an extremely wealthy class outside of global financial centers has done little to alter the structural conditions that govern how wealth circulates and is recognized globally. This is largely due to the structural dominance of those centers in global capital flows, the institutional architecture of international finance, and the symbolic hierarchies that determine whose wealth is considered legitimate. For the newly wealthy in those regions, this context creates a specific predicament: Their substantial wealth remains exposed to risks that the rich in the established core do not face to the same extent, such as currency volatility, political instability, and regulatory unpredictability. Drawing on an eight-year longitudinal study, this book project with co-author Claire Maxwell follows young people from these newly wealthy families who face the challenge of trying to secure their wealth for the future.