Conspiracy Theorists or Lay Economists? Economic Conceptions Among YouTube “Preppers”

• In Event: 4322 - Section on Political Sociology Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 09. Conservatives and Right-Wing Politics

Abstract

Economic Sociology has long recognized that economic action is “embedded.” By focusing on action, however, economic sociology has tended to neglect economic thought, which is equally embedded in social relations, politics, and culture. This paper offers a grounded analysis of virtual ethnographic fieldwork with a community of right-wing preparedness advocates or “preppers” active on the social media website YouTube. Prior analysis suggests that preppers offer three primary causes for a predicted economic collapse (globalization, government overregulation, and exogenous disaster), and three principal imagined futures for what things will look like post-collapse (collectivist retreat, me vs the world, and micro-market). This paper argues that both causes and futures are embedded in culture, politics, and social relations and offers four hypotheses as to the nature of these relationships. I find that, contrary to what might be expected, this group of a group of hyper-individualistic and politically right-leaning preparedness advocates are closer to economic sociologists than economists in their understanding of the co-constitution of economy and society.

Author

• Jonathan Nathaniel Redman, University of California-Irvine