As the state has retreated from public life under neoliberal barrage, individuals from all tax brackets have been compelled to participate in finance as never before. Mortgages are a key and widespread example, but so too are student loans, car loans, medical debt (in the United States) and even the predations of market-integrated pay-day loans and pawnshops … Over the past 50 years, debt has been culturally transformed from an emasculating dependency to be avoided into the marker of full adult subjectivity, evidence of prudent economic maturity and "financial literacy" (see Arthur 2014; Hyman 2011).

Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, loc. 160