Consumer De-responsibilization: Changing Notions of Consumer Subjects and Market Moralities after the 2008-9 Financial Crisis
Additional information
Type
Article in conference proceedings
Year
2020
Language
English
Abstract
A growing body of literature discusses consumer responsibilization
under neoliberalism. However, after the 2008-9 financial crisis, countertendencies
emerged, which have not been sufficiently theorized. Analyzing post-crisis mortgage
regulatory discourse in the UK, Hungary and Switzerland, this paper examines these
countertendencies and proposes the concept of ‘consumer de-responsibilization’,
referring to the shift of responsibility from consumers to the state and financial
institutions. We argue that de-responsibilization was underpinned by shifts in
conceptions of the consumer subject (from the entrepreneurial to the limited rationality
consumer) and in moral ideas of the market (from a deontological to a consequentialist
morality). De-responsibilization operates through a top-down, sovereign form of
governance. It does not replace, yet constrains the fields of neoliberal governmentality
and responsibilization, constituting a hybrid governance system of ‘controlled freedom’.
We situate de-responsibilization as a new modality of neoliberalism, which safeguards
markets by excluding borrowers that may not be profitable enough.
Keywords
Credit, Consumer policy, Financial markets, Moralities, Responsibilization
Conference proceedings
Research in Consumer Culture Theory, Vol. 3
Numero ( Mese )
June
Publisher
Consumer Culture Theory Consortium
Meeting name
Consumer Culture Theory Conference 2020: Interrogating Social Imaginaries
Meeting place
Leicester, United Kingdom
Meeting date
26-28 June 2020
Pages (or article number)
153-156
ISBN
9788794006033
