ABSTRACT
This chapter begins by reflecting the way in which Joseph Stiglitz, a leader in global financial governance, appears to uncritically reproduce at least one of Skinner's mythologies in his interpretation of Adam Smith. It illustrates how asset-based systems of welfare enjoy a largely unquestioned position in regulatory accounts. The chapter describes the regulatory view of personal debt that appears to continue to depoliticise debt relations by insisting on the normalisation of financial services in an advanced economy and works to foster model financialised citizens. It explains credit risk management practices remain largely unchallenged in the regulatory debates. Engaging a sympathetic political economy, it is problematic that the regulatory agenda here appears to normalise the place of credit risk management and structured finance. The chapter concludes that rational behaviour is promoted at the regulatory level when the politics of asset-based welfare are left unquestioned and the consequences of this are revealed in the contradictory attempts to assign responsibility for the crisis.
