Neoliberal deregulation replaced social protection with credit and indebtedness

Evidence

Eager to blunt the resistance raised by their agenda, neoliberal reformers initiated a series of deregulations, regarding capital flow and asset creation, that were meant to replace social protection and guaranteed employment with abundant and accessible credit — thereby endowing all economic agents with entrepreneurial ambitions and discipline. Yet, under the guise of diffusing the ethos of the self-reliant entrepreneur throughout the entire population, their reforms eventually enabled the speculative logic of financial markets to preside over the allocation of resources on a global scale. Thus, far from restoring thrift and frugality as the virtuous paths to personal independence and lasting profit, the reign of deregulated finance defined success as leverage, understood as the ability to invest with borrowed funds, and compelled the less fortunate to stake their livelihood on perennial indebtedness. — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 746

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s existing knowledge of austerity politics and how financialization relocated risk onto individuals — the substitution of credit for wage guarantees is the core mechanism documented in works on financialized capitalism. — connects to: Welfare-state cuts halt the intergenerational mobility they once enabled — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 19; Deregulation let non-finance firms pursue financial activities, fueling debt expansion — Ken-Hou Lin & Donald Tomaskovic-Devey, Financialization and U.S. Income…, 40; Financialization replaced welfare-state collective security with individualized speculative insurance — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 92 (+15 more)

Broader Connections

• The Chilean state socialized private debt while keeping the neoliberal framework intact #exemplifies (0.85) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1595
• Financialization accelerated through 1970s-80s deregulation and state support #expands (0.82) — Andrew deWaard, Derivative Media, 488
• Neoliberal ‘freedom’ prioritized cross-border capital mobility over domestic welfare. #corroborates (0.75) — Dieter Plehwe, Quinn Slobodian & Philip Mirowski (eds.), Nine Lives of Neoliberalism, 423
• Neoliberalism reversed the state’s protective role toward shielding markets #corroborates (0.75) — Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos, 745