How Sweden Turned Skeptics Into Stock Buyers: The Hidden Infrastructure of Market Capitalism
A new historical analysis reveals how Sweden's shift to market-driven finance in the 1970s succeeded not through grand ideology, but through mundane tools and moral persuasion. By studying the rise of retail stock investing and consumer credit, researchers show how ordinary citizens learned to embrace financial markets—insights that matter for understanding how any major economic transformation actually takes root.
Originaltitel: The Making of Everyman’s Capitalism in Sweden: Micro-infrastructures, Unlearning, and Moral Boundary Work
<p>This article analyzes the so-called turn to the market in Sweden, with an emphasis on aspects that are typically absent from large-scale narratives. How did the changes known as neoliberalization and financialization enter everyday life and mundane financial practices? And which analytical tools can historians use to meaningfully connect the experience of changes on the micro level to those on the macro level? Zooming in on the the year 1979 and focusing on two empirical cases—the popularization of stock saving and the domestication of consumer credit—allows us to elaborate and apply a set of analytical entry points about (1) mundane micro-infrastructures, (2) financial knowledge as learning and unlearning, and (3) moral boundary work. This framework offers a way of exploring when and in what ways new financial practices were experienced and eventually embraced by those who had previously been skeptical or even hostile. It also reveals the role played by actors and institutions not typically seen as agents of marketization.</p>