Scholars including Brooke Harrington (2008), Randy Martin (2003), Paul Langley (2008), Rob Aitken (2007), Julia Ott (2011) and Louis Hyman (2011) have done the invaluable work of showing how investing, financial risk management and financial literacy have been sold to publics well beyond the financial sector, to such an extent that today, in an age of the neoliberal retreat of the welfare state and other modalities of collective insurance and wealth, we are all increasingly expected to understand ourselves as savvy financial actors, judiciously managing our material and immaterial assets in a world without guarantees.

Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, loc. 35