Entrepreneurial subjectivity and the political economy of daily life in the time of finance

Abstract

This article examines the emergence of a 'financial subject' in the transformation of the UK economy since 1979, using a critical realist approach to subjectivity that investigates underlying causal mechanisms and structures as they affect daily life. Financial restructuring, including widespread borrowing and increasing personal investment, has forged links between finance markets and personal finance, as workers' wages are financialized. This engenders entrepreneurial subjectivity, with individuals interpellated to be self-reliant in managing possible risks. It argues that the process of subjectivation, where individuals recognize themselves and their goals relative to financial markets, exemplifies the development of financialization itself, since it gives an insight into the successful reproduction of social relations of finance. It illustrates the instability related to wages and inequality, as some subjects have to contend with unpredictable employment prospects as potential future risks that complicate the practices of personal investment and borrowing, creating new hierarchies bound up with the financialization of the economy.

¿La financiarización de la vida cotidiana? Un análisis de las subjetividades financieras y las actitudes hacia el riesgo económico en España

“…This new neoliberal rationality underpins a particular form of subjectivity, namely financial subjectivity. This can be defined as a series of attitudes towards daily life that redirect individual practices and households towards the notion of risk and self-sufficiency (Mulcahy 2017;Langley 2007). Specifically, this subjectivity "refers to the process in which individuals internalize entrepreneurial attitudes to personal success, as well as financial stability and freedom" (Mulcahy 2017: 222).…”

“…The term financial subjectivity originated in the same semantic field as the concept of neoliberal rationality. Following Mulcahy (2017), financial subjectivity could be defined as a series of practices and attitudes that unfold within the context of everyday life, redefining people's relationship with the notion of risk and self-sufficiency. According to Dardot and Laval (2015), this subjectivity is related to the rise of neoliberal rationality; a new framework that favours individual responsibility, entrepreneurship, flexibility and adaptability.…”

“…Major contributions have been made to the literature on financial subjectivity in recent years (Mulcahy 2017;Dardot and Laval 2015;Langley and Leyshon 2012). Yet in general, it is characterised by a considerable degree of theoretical imprecision regarding the exact nature of financial subjectivity.…”

The ecosystem of a ‘wealth-tech’ culture: the birth of networked financial subjects in South Korea

“…Abundant writings suggest that the reign of financial capitalism has transformed everyday individuals from passive savers to entrepreneurial investors (Hall, 2011; Jang, 2011). Financial subjectification takes place as ‘an individual “turns him or herself into a subject” (Foucault, 1994: 126) of finance, engaged in investment and borrowing as technologies of the self’ (Mulcahy, 2017: 224). Embracing responsibly the demands of financialized capitalism, everyday individuals have been made into financial subjects who align their goals with financial policies and manage their affairs as a series of investments and returns (French and Kneale, 2012; Mulcahy, 2017).…”

Memory, counter-memory and resistance: notes on the ‘Greek Debt Truth Commission’

“…Nevertheless, my interest in the TCPD does not centre upon the efficacy of its legal arguments, even if their efficaciousness remains important to the analysis I develop here. Rather, I am interested in the TCPD because it attempted to problematise and address broader and significant questions regarding the now ever-present social context of financialisation and debt, which has been of increasing concern for sociologists and social theorists in the decade since the 2008 global financial crash (See: Adkins, 2017;Federici, 2014;Joseph, 2014;Lazzarato, 2012Lazzarato, , 2015Mulcahy 2017), and which is treated across this volume. In other words, I am concerned with how the TCPD contests the socio-political problem of debt engendered by financialisation, and what lessons we might take from its practices in our ongoing engagements with these issues.…”