The Cultural Logics of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005: Fiscal Identities and Financial Failure

Abstract

The enactment of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act (‘BAPCPA’) of 2005, amending the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 1978, marks a transformation in bankruptcy law and policy that is representative of larger shifts in dominant economic and political models from ‘embedded liberalism’ to free market ‘neoliberalism’. BAPCPA’s provisions are part of the new practices of the emergent neoliberal state as they relate to the American middle-class segment of the population. In disciplining the middle class, BAPCPA shifts the risk and the responsibility of the lending relationship onto consumer debtors.

Keywords

economic bankruptcy neoliberalism middle class BAPCPA consumers fiscal identity failure anthropology and sociology law

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