My goal in this chapter is to examine the thought behind the inclination or disinclination to use institutional means to collectivize risk and bad luck. I provide an overview of the distribution of luck to dispel simplistic analyses of rising inequality, as well as make the case that power and mystification are mechanisms that appeal to the idea of individual bad luck, thereby allowing institutions to back out of welfare commitments. I begin with an undeservedly lesser-known debate between Brian Barry (2002), Keith Dowding (2003) and Steven Lukes and LaDawn Haglund (2005). They argued about the explanatory value of luck in political analysis. The debate revolved around two questions. First, is it possible to use luck as an analytical category; and second, if so, when should this category be used? This debate emerged from a question posed by Barry: ‘which is a better attribute, luck or power?’ For Barry, power is the ‘ability to change outcomes from what they would otherwise have been in the direction he desires’, whereas luck is a beneficial outcome that occurs when no power is exercised (1991, 272). Keith Dowding adds that some interests are predisposed to being lucky because ‘they get what they want from society without having to act’ or ‘because of the way society is structured’ (Dowding 1996, 71). Dowding, in a later piece, argues that ‘capitalists were lucky in the sense that governments would often do what capitalists want without them having to intervene in the policy process’ (2003, 305).

Dowding notes that a person can pre-emptively act to secure a more desirable position. However, he holds that this pre-emptive action is conceptually attributed to the status of luck as opposed to being merely given that status by persons who might not be aware of how a particular system may privilege certain members. Lastly, Dowding offers little to account for the fleeting nature of fortune. What of bad luck or what of situations where good luck is lost? Is bad luck merely the converse of good luck? That is, no matter what power is exerted the outcome will never be favourable. And most importantly, is the working class systematically unlucky?