Life insurance gained legitimacy by framing itself as family care rather than death gambling

Evidence

To distinguish it from stigmatized wagering on the demise of some arbitrary policy-holder, various prohibitions were instituted against purchase of insurance on the lives of unrelated strangers. In other words, life insurance was successfully rendered palatable for mass market purchase by presenting it as a product whereby you might “personalize” your prudence with regard to those closest to you, most generally, bereaved family members. But once life insurance had become a mass commodity, then the standardized narrative unraveled. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 355

Categorization

• XREF: Parallels with the immodesty article’s theme: how a stigmatized practice is sanitized through a legitimizing narrative before being re-commodified. — connects to: Financialization replaced welfare-state collective security with individualized speculative insurance — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 92; Insurance historically functions as collective imagined solidarity, not individual self-interest. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living With…, 273; Luxury consumption boosts self-esteem, a defense against death anxiety. — Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, The Worm at the Core: On the Role of…, 447 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Financialization replaced welfare-state collective security with individualized speculative insurance #expands (0.80) — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 92
• Financialized capitalism shifted from spreading risk to endorsing risk via self-insurance. #complicates (0.80) — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 274
• Insurance historically functions as collective imagined solidarity, not individual self-interest. #complicates (0.78) — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 273
• Luxury consumption boosts self-esteem, a defense against death anxiety. #corroborates (0.75) — Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, The Worm at the Core, 447
• Marriage functions as private insurance when public and market insurance recede #exemplifies (0.75) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 888
• Lottery logic makes consumers invest emotionally in others’ success #complicates (0.74)