Libertarian and neoclassical ideological approaches suggested that, rather than the state taking responsibility for poverty and lack of social housing and education, these “investments in human capital” should be made by individuals. Liberalizing banking and borrowing laws, rules and regulations would allow the poor (many of whom were structurally disadvantaged, as in the case of most US Blacks in the wake of slavery and the subsequent Jim Crow and segregationist laws and practices) to accumulate and then leverage “capital” in the form of homes and education (Wyly 2010). Rather than “perpetuating” “reliance” on the paternalistic state, a more wholesome American free-market solution could be achieved by encouraging personal responsibility, prudent risk-taking and competitive ambition.

Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, loc. 200