Investing in America: The Politics and Political Development of an Asset-Based Society

While at the Academy, Thurston is working on her second single-authored book, “Investing in America: The Politics and Political Development of an Asset-Based Society.” The project examines the political development and implications of the rise of mass investment culture in the US. Beginning in the 1990s, Americans increasingly participated in the stock market, a trend following the rise of employer and individual retirement accounts, the growth of mutual and index funds, and new technologies that enabled the participation of smaller investors. The investor ethos has increasingly altered American perception of homeownership, education, and wealth generation. For example, homeownership—long a bedrock of American society—has become less a repository of wealth than a generator of it. Market-minded Americans now increasingly consider the costs of higher education in terms of human capital investment and ‘return on investment’ benefits. Through the early 2020s, investment gains and housing value increases have outpaced wage growth, further reinforcing this shift to an investor ideology. These trends resemble similar neoliberal trends in policy and politics such as financialization, welfare state restructuring, as well as the rise of rentier capitalism and asset management capitalism. Thurston’s project asks why, how, and to what effect? While in Berlin, she hopes to gain a deeper understanding of Germany’s own response to similar pressures.