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The Madoffization of society: a corrosive process in an age of fictitious capital
Date
2012
Abstract
In 2009, US financier Bernard (Bernie) L. Madoff was jailed for 150 years after pleading guilty to running a massive ponzi scheme. While superficial condemnation was widespread, his US$65 billion fraud cannot be understood apart from the institutions, practices and fictions of contemporary finance capitalism. Madoff’s scam was rooted in the wider political prioritization of accumulation through debt expansion and the deregulated, desupervised and criminogenic environment facilitating it. More generally, global finance capital reproduces many of the core elements of the Madoff scam (i.e. mass deception, secrecy and obfuscation), particularly in neoliberalized Anglophone societies. We call this ‘Madoffization’. We suggest that societies are ‘Madoffized’, not only in the sense of their being subject to the ill-effects of speculative ponzi finance, but also in the sense that their prioritization of accumulation through debt expansion makes fraudulent practices, economic collapse and scapegoating inevitable.
Supervisor
Description
peer-reviewed
Publisher
SAGE Publications Ltd.
Citation
Critical Sociology;39(6), pp. 869-887
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Funding code
Funding Information
Sustainable Development Goals
External Link
Type
Article
Rights
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/1.0/