Asset-based welfare policies since the 1990s individualized the risks of material security.

Evidence

What they call ‘Coupon pool capitalism’ is characterized by the meaningful involvement of a wider proportion of the population in asset markets, ‘the fortunate 40 percent’ (i.e. the top two quintiles of households by income) that held 80–90 percent of aggregate savings by value in the US and UK by the turn of the millennium (Froud et al., 2001: 72–4). Such developments in asset ownership are grounded in the post-war growth of ‘final salary’ occupational pension schemes, and were furthered from the 1970s and 1980s through the political promotion of tax-favoured mutual fund products and ‘shareholder democracy’ (Langley, 2008). They were also given greater governmental impetus by ‘asset-based welfare’ policies from the mid-1990s onwards that served to individualize the responsibility and risk of material well-being and security. Homes became widely regarded in the US, UK and Australia in particular as investable assets to be leveraged through mortgage debt, traded-up, drawn-down and so on (Doling & Ronald, 2010). Intermediary elites, meanwhile, reinvented retail banks, lending and asset management institutions to earn fees from services provided to asset-holders (Erturk et al., 2008: 27). — Paul Langley, Assets and Assetization in…, 38

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the ‘asset-based welfare’ policy literature and Piketty’s work on asset wealth distribution — the reader in financialization research would see this as a direct bridge. — connects to: Financialization replaced welfare-state collective security with individualized speculative insurance — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 92; Neoliberal restructuring converts collective public goods into individualized risk management — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 266; Financialized capitalism shifted from spreading risk to endorsing risk via self-insurance. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living With…, 274 (+4 more)
• ADDENDUM: Supports the sacrificial-risk theme: asset-based welfare transfers responsibility for well-being from the state to individual households holding leveraged assets.

Related

• Financialization replaced welfare-state collective security with individualized speculative insurance (similarity 0.84)
• Neoliberal restructuring converts collective public goods into individualized risk management (similarity 0.80)
• Financialized capitalism shifted from spreading risk to endorsing risk via self-insurance. (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Financialized capitalism shifted from spreading risk to endorsing risk via self-insurance. #corroborates (0.80) — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 274
• Financialization redraws who supplies life’s basic needs, shifting welfare from state to markets #corroborates (0.78) — Natascha van der Zwan, Making Sense of Financialization, 64
• Algorithmic risk prediction individualizes insurance and erodes social solidarity #expands (0.72) — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 421
• Industries shifted responsibility for hazards onto individual workers’ protective gear #exemplifies (0.72)