Risking Together: How Finance Is Dominating Everyday Life in Australia

Australia is in the midst of a major social and economic experiment that centres on financial risks being shifted onto ordinary people. We are being asked to manage ourselves as if we are businesses, and these businesses are being squeezed tighter and tighter.

Households are taking on more risk and financial stress, implicitly accepting demands that they be stable, secure payers. What is driving this, and how might we resist it?

Risking Together: How Finance is Dominating Everyday Life in Australia explains what is systematic about this 'risk-shifting' onto households, explores the frontier of financialised profit making, and includes suggestions on pushing back.

'This brilliant and timely book shows how a silent yet pervasive transformation has taken place in Australian society ... Bryan and Rafferty show how finance has become implicated in all aspects of social life and how mundane household financial transactions are now central to the economic stability of the nation.'

Lisa Adkins, Head of the School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Sydney and Academy of Finland Distinguished Professor, University of Tampere, Finland.

'In the world of post-blockchain technologies we're looking to build new ways of risking together. The work of Bryan and Rafferty has been inspiring. This new book presents us with concepts and methods of analysis that are groundbreaking.'

Akseli Virtanen, CEO, Economic Space Agency, Oakland, California and Berlin.