Cultivating the self-reliant and responsible individual: the material culture of financial literacy

ABSTRACT

This paper analyses the promotion of financial education by many national and international organisations around the world. Drawing on the material culture of financialisation, financial education policy is perceived as part of a broader neoliberal project to extend commodification and (re)construct social and economic reproduction in ways favourable to the financial sector. It argues that, while numerous contradictions inherent in financial education programmes jeopardise the goal of improving individual financial decisions through education, the ideological goal of these initiatives is not compromised. It is the neoliberal cultural project of cultivating self-reliance and individual responsibility at the expense of collective forms of provision across new areas of economic and social life.

Acknowledgements

Special thanks are due to Ben Fine, Kate Bayliss and Mary Robertson as well as two anonymous referees for comments on an earlier draft.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Ana C. Santos is Senior Researcher at the Centre for Social Studies, University of Coimbra, Portugal. Her research interests include methodology of economics, experimental and behavioural economics, financialisation and household finances. She has published on these topics in various journals. For more information, see http://www.ces.uc.pt/investigadores/index.php?action=bio&id_investigador=177&id_lingua=2.

Notes

1. Many definitions of financial literacy and associated notions of financial education coexist in the literature (see Remund 2010). We will follow here the OECD’s definition of financial education targeted to the retail consumer/investor, understood as ‘the process by which financial consumers/investors improve their understanding of financial products and concepts and, through information, instruction and/or objective advice develop skills and confidence to become more aware of financial risks and opportunities, to make informed choices, to know where to go for help, and to take other effective actions to improve their financial well-being and protection’ (OECD 2005a: 26).

2. The OECD defines a national strategy for financial education as ‘a nationally co-ordinated approach to financial education’ which: ‘recognises the importance of financial education – including possibly through legislation – and defines its meaning and scope at the national level in relation to identified national needs and gaps; involves the co-operation of different stakeholders as well as the identification of a national leader or co-ordinating body/council; establishes a roadmap to achieve specific and predetermined objectives within a set period of time; and provides guidance to be applied by individual programmes in order to efficiently and appropriately contribute to the national strategy’ (OECD/INFE 2012: 7).

3. One of the most popular and all-encompassing definitions of financialisation is that offered by Epstein (2005: 3) referring to the ‘increasing importance of financial markets, financial motives, financial institutions, and financial elites in the operations of the economy and its governing institutions, both at the national and international levels'.

4. That the term ‘financialisation’, however defined, is not used is not at all surprising as it has been developed and adopted by critical perspectives on the financialisation of contemporary capitalist economies. See Fine (2011).

5. The World Bank is instead more active promoting financial education in developing countries (see, for example, Rutledge, 2010, and Gabor and Brooks 2017).

6. http://www.financial-education.org/join_INFE.html (consulted on 28 May 2015).

7. The ‘occupy’ and the ‘indignants' movements have certainly caught the public’s eye and imagination worldwide, campaigning against the power of finance and austerity's regressive policies. And, while the prospects for important segments of the population continue gloomy, including those for the younger generations who cannot aspire to the living standards of their parents and even less so to climb on to the property ladder, mortgage lending, for example, already shows signs of recovery in many places. See, for example, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8cfddb46-c66f-11e4-add0-00144feab7de.html#axzz3hNx4Ho4s, and http://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/jul/24/mortgage-lending-shows-uk-housing-market-hotting-up, consulted on 29 July 2015.

Additional information

Funding

The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) under grant agreement number 266800.