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Consumer fi nancial literacy education often appears as a helpful, commonsense
solution to neoliberalism and the individualization of responsibility for economic risk.
However, in Financial Literacy Education: Neoliberalism, the Consumer and the Citizen
this particular literacy is argued to be both ineffective and unjust. Socially created
poverty, unemployment and economic insecurity require more than individual consumer
solutions; they require collective responses by engaged, critical citizens. Utilizing
concepts from Marx, Foucault, Bourdieu and Baudrillard this book challenges those
who claim that 'there is no alternative' to neoliberal insecurity and reduce education
to a consumerist training of entrepreneurial consumer-citizens who can continually
invest in themselves and the market. Through an analysis of consumer fi nancial literacy
education's present and historical supports, as well as its likely effects, this book
argues that the choice before us is not fi nancial illiteracy or fi nancial literacy. Rather,
the choice is between subjugation to the requirements of perpetual competition
or overcoming alienation, insecurity and exploitation, aims the critical fi nancial
literacy education outlined at the end of this book supports. This book will appeal
to those interested in understanding the conditions of our freedom in an increasingly
fi nancialized world - critical educators, philosophers and sociologists of education and
fi nancial literacy researchers.
