The Making of Everyman’s Capitalism in Sweden: Micro-Infrastructures, Unlearning, and Moral Boundary Work

Abstract

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.