Apologies if this post doesn’t fit well here, this has a personal element but is ultimately a moral and political discussion.
Personal context:
I’ve lived with no/low income as a disabled person my whole adult life with no end in sight. I try to follow best personal finance practices to try and ensure my survival as I can’t simply look to make more money. As I understand it, the advice I’ve read would be to begin investing (commonly in equity ETFs) once you have saved enough of an emergency fund and are ready to put away assets for the long-term. Due to a unique situation, I might manage to save enough money to begin investing before I go back to living paycheck to paycheck.
Concerns:
A) Is it unethical? On one hand, I’d be investing into truly evil companies. On the other, there’s no ethical survival under captialism and my minuscule investment won’t make or break a megacorps’ ability to do evil shit. Taking a silent stand won’t have an impact and I may just be hurting my own personal finances in the process. In turn, that ironically may make it harder for me to safely save and spend money on things like community organizing.
B) Isn’t it contradictory and unsafe? Investing in equities means I'd be betting on continued “growth” for decades to come. This is the system I’d be working to dismantle and investing in it would be like I’m betting against myself. Considering the impending climate crisis and foreseeable global instability, investing in equities feels like more of a gamble and less of a sound financial decision, but I’m not sure what that means for how I should manage my finances.
A) I can't answer that question, but just so everyone's clear: the money you invest in megacorps doesn't go to megacorps. It goes to other shareholders that owned shares of the megacorps and a small percentage would go to the trading platform and the capital market itself. If you're investing in ETFs, the company that manages the fund will likely get a small management cut too. Either way, it mostly goes to people seeking to lower or eliminate their stake on the companies you invest in. It's more like a horse racing thing: You bet on a horse, but the horse doesn't get your money.
B) Yes, all investments are gambles, to an extent. The only difference is the different levels of risk and reward. And in finances, betting a certain amount against what you hope for if called "hedging". It basically means "I want X to happen, but if Y happens, I want my ass covered too." This concept may be useful to you.
Personally, many consider me an anarchist because I don't believe in the legitimacy of any power that anyone holds against anyone else whatsoever (except my mom's), but I'm also a pragmatist. The world will follow its course and we can only do so much. We can hold our beliefs and make the marginally small pushes we can afford to make towards a world we believe is better, but we also must survive and ensure our own stability given the current state of the world as is. That means adapting to current reality.
Now, be warned. If your investments do really well and you find yourself swimming with money in the future, there comes a point where money becomes poison. The way I see it there are only 3 amounts of money: Not enough, comfortable enough and too much.
Good for you for making ends meet. Allow yourself to feel proud of your accomplishment. Surviving in this economy is no easy thing.
Source: I'm a financial consultant that holds virtually no assets.
Edit: Horse racing for clarity and typo.
Thanks for clarifying! If it isn't too personal or off-topic, would you mind sharing why you don't hold any/many assets?
No problem, and sure.
The truth is I just have never really focused on making money that much. I like how it works but I've seen it poison a lot of people. I got into business school and then econ due to family pressure. With the exception of a long period of time where I struggled with mental health, I had a good education that allowed me to make ends meet pretty easily, at least on a basic level. Instead of saving, I put my money into a couple of failed ventures that didn't do well for different reasons. Right now I'm trying to start a new business with the money I make off consulting.
I don't like passive income as a concept, and I wish to work at least a little bit for the rest of my life, so starting a company seems like the reasonable way of keeping my own freedom while making an income and staying ethical.
Hope this answers your question.