Original scientific paper
EXPLAINING AND QUANTIFIYING THE EXTRACTIVE SUCCESS OF FINANCIAL SYSTEMS: MICROFINANCE AND THE FINANCIALISATION OF POVERTY
Philip Mader
Abstract
Microfinance serves as a key case for studying the
effects of financial systems. As a development
intervention deeply intertwined with processes
of financialisation, we study the expansion and
workings of microfinance on three dimensions. First,
microfinance’s appeal is built on positive mobilising
narratives which present poverty as a problem of
finance, and portray it as superior solution relative
to charity or other redistributive alternatives.
Second, microfinance as a financial system exerts
a governmentality which works through technologies
of the selffor disciplinary individuals to
uphold regularity in capital flows. Third, in this way
microfinance makes possible the extraction of surplus
value from its poor borrowers, who may not have
much choice, at a considerable scale. We conclude
that these three dimensions help to explain the ways
in which financial systems overall operate and expand.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
133118
URI
Publication date:
1.12.2013.
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