Financialization of Daily Life

While trillions of dollars came and went in the stock market boom of the 1990s, the image of every man and woman a CEO may turn out to be the era's lasting legacy. This work looks at how this transformation occurred, and how it is just now becoming a significant, and troubling, aspect of our political and cultural life. It takes us through all of the aspects of our financialization. It examines how the shift in economic life arose not only from changes in culture, but also from new policy priorities that emphasize controlling inflation over promoting growth. It offers a reading of self-help literature that teaches parents how to rear financially literate children and to instruct adults in the fundamentals of fiscal management. The text examines just what a society that treats financial investment as a national past time really looks like, and how that society is transforming the world.