Predatory lending has thrived on hope as much as on poverty for centuries
Evidence
It is important to locate the genealogies of sub-prime lending. First, some aspects of the sub-prime business have been in operation for centuries. Pawnshops and loan sharks have been the subjects of myths, legends, fables and cautionary tales since before the rise of capitalism and have been a key feature of the life of the poor throughout that system’s development. These industries thrived not only on poverty, and usually urbanized poverty, but also, perversely, on hope. Their extortionate fees and rates of interest could be justified not only by necessity, but also be the fact that people tend to need to assume things will get better in the future in order to keep going. — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 195
Categorization
- XREF: Connects directly to deWaard’s cultural argument that finance colonizes everyday subjectivity — here the mechanism is hope as an affective fuel for extraction. — connects to: Predatory sub-prime lending preyed on America’s poor and racialized communities — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 154; Modern finance normalizes the same hopeful indebtedness fiction once condemned — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 195; Sub-prime lending exploited the American Dream myth to sell mobility to marginalized borrowers — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 528 (+1 more)
- CANDY: The perverse insight that loan sharks profit off hope, not just misery, is a striking elevator-conversation fact.
- SEED: Angle: hope as a financialized resource — how lenders mine optimism rather than only desperation; ties to Modern Monetary Theory’s claims about belief sustaining credit.
Broader Connections
- Modern finance normalizes the same hopeful indebtedness fiction once condemned
#corroborates(0.85) — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 195 - A profitable poverty industry profits from the poor via pay-day and pawn services
#exemplifies(0.85) — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 72 - Sub-prime lending exploited the American Dream myth to sell mobility to marginalized borrowers
#exemplifies(0.82) — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 528