Do We Lack Financial Education? From a Discourse that Disregards Precarity and Expropriation to Counter-Hegemonic Perspectives

Abstract

In times of neoliberal financial capitalism – marked by widespread expropriations and growing precarity of living conditions – the notion that we lack financial education has become increasingly prevalent. This essay aims to critically examine that mainstream perspective and introduce counter-hegemonic references to foster discussions so we can be challenging in relation to finance. I begin by presenting analyses, primarily from feminist authors, on the current socio-economic context. I then share questions and insights developed through research on themes such as consumption, credit, and indebtedness, which are deeply intertwined with the production of contemporary subjectivity and the maintenance of the current system. In the following section, I explore how, in less than two decades, financial education in Brazil has emerged and undergone a discursive boom across political, academic, and media spheres. In the fourth and final section, I present the notion of feminist potency as a desiring capacity and Brazilian counter-hegemonic approaches to financial education, highlighting some that, in different ways, are aligned with diverse feminist frameworks. Drawing on feminist pedagogies, I reflect on possibilities for disobedience to financial logic within and beyond educational institutions. Based on feminist critiques of debt, I question its moralization and the stigma surrounding poor credit scores. I analyze the case of Feirão Limpa Nome, a massive debt renegotiation initiative by Serasa, as a means to deconstruct the binary logic of benevolent creditor versus irresponsible debtor. Ultimately, considering the differential expropriation faced by many, I underscore the urgency of producing and disseminating disruptive knowledge in this field.

Keywords: Financial Education. Feminism. Indebtedness.