Subjectivity and the Mode of Social Regulation in Contemporary, Finance-led Regimes of Accumulation

• In Event: 604 - Section on Marxist Sociology Paper Session. Crises and the Future of Capitalism

Abstract

This paper examines the emergence of a ‘financial subject’ in the structural transformation of Western capitalist economies over the last three decades. Financial restructuring (which includes the ‘democratisation’ of finance and credit among both low- and high-risk households as real wages stagnate, as well as increasing investment in private pensions and mutual funds instead of thrift and savings, or collective insurance, to make ends meet) has forged links between finance markets and everyday saving and spending, as workers’ wages are progressively financialised. This engenders an entrepreneurial subjectivity, as individuals are called upon to be self-reliant and responsible in managing present and future risks. I argue that the process of subjectivation, in which individuals begin to recognise themselves, their goals and their success or wellbeing in relation to financial markets, is crucial to understanding the development of financialisation more broadly, since it gives insight into the successful reproduction of social relations of finance. It also sheds light on the emergence of instability related to socioeconomic stratification when subjects are constrained by unequal conditions such as employment, precarious income, or gender and race, from reproducing themselves as successful financial subjects.

Author

• Niamh Mulcahy, University of Cambridge