The Madoffization of Irish society: from Ponzi finance to sociological critique

Abstract

Financialization and neoliberal policy created the Celtic Tiger. This economic 'miracle' furthered creditors' and property developers' speculative interests, leading to an unstable financial pyramid that eventually imploded in 2008 with catastrophic consequences for Irish society. Using the sociological imagination as social critique, this paper offers a lens on fictitious capital and Ponzi finance in the context of Ireland's boom and bust. Critique is advanced using the Madoffization of society thesis, a sociological heuristic that draws formal comparisons between Bernie Madoff's US$65 billion Ponzi scheme, which collapsed in 2008, and financialized capitalism. The Madoff case exhibits five main elements or forms which, it has been argued, underlie the varying content of life on a much broader scale: accumulation by debt expansion, mass deception, efforts to maintain secrecy and silence, obfuscation, and scapegoating. In conclusion, a crucial difference between the Madoff case and the Madoffization of Irish society is underscored. Discussion also moves from critique to hope amidst calls to renew sociology and transform financialized capitalism.

Coronavirus (COVID‐19), pandemic psychology and the fractured society: a sociological case for critique, foresight and action

“…Already existing problems therein include, inter alia : environmental threat, class exploitation and precarity, post‐national othering and cultural disorientation. In short, prior to COVID‐19 and the possibility of corrosive forms of pandemic psychology, multiple pathologies had already proliferated and were affecting everyday life (Monaghan and O’Flynn, 2017; Streeck, 2016). I do not intend simply to reiterate Scambler’s (2020a) contribution, published in a recent special section on COVID‐19 in Health Sociology Review .…”