Explaining and Quantifiying the Extractive Success of Financial Systems

Microfinance and the Financialisation of Poverty

Bibliographic Data

ID15066646
AuthorsPhilip Mader (0000-0002-8833-1917, Max Planck Society, corresponding author)
Year2013
Volume26
Issuesup1
Pages13-28
Publication date2013-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEconomic Research-Ekonomska Istraživanja (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1331-677X • E-ISSN: 1848-9664
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/1331677x.2013.11517637
OpenAlexW2096228317
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited25

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

Appeal · Economic growth · Economics · Financial services · Financial system · Governmentality · Microfinance · Political science · Poverty · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism · Microfinance and Financial Inclusion · Urban and Rural Development Challenges · Finance

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Open DOISci-HubOpen Access