Chapter 6 explains how and why American policymakers doubled down on housing programs in response to the 2008-2009 housing crash. Although the crash presented an opportunity to end generous housing programs that helped inflate the housing bubble, policymakers did the opposite. With remarkably little partisan conflict, they expanded housing support to fix the source of the crisis and promote economic recovery by restoring housing-based growth. By bailing out the government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, politicians effectively nationalized the country's housing finance market. The Federal Reserve further supported housing by purchasing large amounts of mortgage debt through its quantitative easing programs, which artificially lowered mortgage costs for households. Although initially designed as temporary measures, decisionmakers made these interventions permanent, fearing that removing them could disrupt a complex mortgage market and housing-based growth central to the demand-led economy. This housing policy expansion was the logical culmination of a century-long process of cumulative political actions to stimulate housing and reinforce America's demand-led growth regime.

Chapter 5 focuses on the enforcement of credit contractual agreements and questions the meaning of trust in credit networks. Despite the norms of solidarity, cooperation, and fairness that characterized pre-industrial society, breach of agreement did occur. When lenders and debtors had exhausted all the possibilities available to settle their disagreement, taking the matter to court was often the last resort. The aim was to recover the money owed, but often the emotional and social implications of a lawsuit went beyond the simple economic dimension. Throughout the period, the burden of debt increased rapidly, as well as the number of discontented creditors. The apparent dichotomy is intriguing: on the one hand, financial arrangements were flexible and renegotiable, but on the other, contract enforcement at court was sought after. These lawsuits are rich sources of information for the historian. They highlight the shortcomings and failures of debtors, and the (im)patience of creditors. But above all, they display the dynamics of complex and multiple layers of social and economic relationships. Overall, this chapter reconstructs both transactional and dispute resolution practices in

This chapter challenges the binary contrast between ’myth’ and rational account (logos), reviewing the negative impact of the application of that dichotomy when used to draw contrasts between properly scientific modes of discourse and those to be dismissed as irrational. Ethnographic reports show that there is often no equivalent to our term ’myth’ in indigenous vocabularies, at least not one that carries similar pejorative undertones. The arguments of Lévi-Strauss that systems of myth may convey ’concrete science’ have the merit of taking those systems seriously, but still imply a pejorative binary judgement.

This chapter examines the varying roles that definitions may play in scientific investigations. Obviously they may laudably aim at clarifying the problem to be explored, but the demand and search for univocal definitions can have a limiting effect on the inquiry subsequently pursued. When a definition is presented as the goal of an investigation, for example of the characteristics of an animal species, that may have the effect of obscuring some of the complexities that may be uncovered along the way. The problem of the role of definitions in an axiomatic system such as Euclid’s lies in their presumed self-evidence.

Chapter 2 introduces the topic of foreclosure, and includes discussion of the theoretical frameworks and principles that can inform deeper consideration of the foreclosure issues of the past decade and going forward. The chapter examines the differential impact of race among U.S. consumers. It offers interviews with individuals who are currently fighting foreclosure and their lawyers. Our investigation traces the specificity of the discriminatory targeting of black Americans for predatory schemes. The chapter also includes a framing discussion with respect to the mortgage-backed securities market, market practice and regulatory oversight at the commencement of the global financial crisis. We examine the huge gap between what regulators believed was occurring and the practice of mortgage lending on the ground. We explore the deeper connection between market design and its consequent incentives for self-dealing as primary drivers of continuing harmful conduct in financial markets. Our objective in this chapter is to give readers that may have only passing familiarity with critical race theory or financial market theory a solid context in which to read the rest of the book.

Chapter 6 discusses how lobbying by lenders in the U.S. Senate resulted in a vitally important missed opportunity to give a life-line to millions facing foreclosure through bankruptcy reform. Bankruptcy forgiveness could have been an immediate and highly effective strategy to deal with the millions of home foreclosures. It has become increasingly evident that, paraphrasing the words of Audre Lord, the “master’s mortgage tools,” the mortgage products and financial services that precipitated the crisis, many of which continue today, and the abusive conduct underpinning subprime lending, is a story of racism. The predatory lending resulted in massive destruction of the African-American dream of home ownership that will take decades to recover from. Yet both financial and policy responses to the crisis continue to use the same financial structures, the same market tools, and the same market players. As long as reform only tackles regulatory change that “tinkers”+L9 at the edges of the structural problems, there is unlikely to be systematic relief from inappropriate exercise of power and unlikely to be any meaningful justice for the millions of individuals harmed by predatory lending.