Blaming individual borrowers hides a systemic precariousness produced by finance

Evidence

Though at opposite ends of a spectrum, both the Wall Street financier and the sub-prime borrower are subjects and objects of an economic idiom at once beyond their control and driven by their actions. Both are trapped, though one in a more gilded cage. In short, both have seen their own social reproduction become dependent on the capacity to which they, in their unique and specific ways, reproduce financialized capitalism. While corporatized media outlets have been quick to castigate sub-prime borrowers for “living beyond their means” and for taking advantage of the system, they hold very little power. — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 208

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to deWaard’s argument that finance’s colonization of everyday life is systemic, not a matter of individual moral failure. — connects to: Debt politics functions as a morality play shifting blame from banks to the state — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 56; Exploding mortgage-security demand forced lenders to invent worthless borrowers. — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 94; Development economics RCTs blame individuals while ignoring poverty’s structural causes — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 289 (+14 more)

Broader Connections

• Blaming borrowers’ financial ignorance obscures the structural logic of sub-prime lending #corroborates (0.95) — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 528
• The bad-apples framing deflects blame from systemic causes #corroborates (0.92)
• Blame for the 2008 crisis was displaced from banks onto borrowers #corroborates (0.90)
• Precarity breeds displaced anger aimed at the vulnerable, not at finance’s architects #corroborates (0.80) — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 226
• Everyday financialized actors co-produce precarity alongside macro institutions #complicates (0.75) — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 214