Gambling Debt

A look at Iceland’s 2008 meltdown from multiple perspectives: “The story is at once shocking and hilarious . . . But also a testament to human resilience.” —Keith Hart, London School of Economics

Iceland’s 2008 financial collapse was the first case in a series of meltdowns, a warning of danger in the global order. This full-scale anthropology of financialization and the economic crisis broadly discusses this momentous bubble and burst and places it in theoretical, anthropological, and global historical context through descriptions of the complex developments leading to it and the larger social and cultural implications and consequences.
Chapters from anthropologists, sociologists, historians, economists, and key local participants focus on the neoliberal policies—mainly the privatization of banks and fishery resources—that concentrated wealth among a select few, skewed the distribution of capital in a way that Iceland had never experienced before, and plunged the country into a full-scale economic crisis. Gambling Debt significantly raises the level of understanding and debate on the issues relevant to financial crises, painting a portrait of the meltdown from many points of view—from bankers to schoolchildren, from fishers in coastal villages to the urban poor and immigrants, and from artists to philosophers and other intellectuals.

Gambling Debt is a game-changing contribution to the discussion of economic crises and neoliberal financial systems and strategies that touches upon anthropology, sociology, economics, philosophy, political science, business, and ethics.

“Honest, entertaining, and informative . . . Explores the changing distribution of wealth and the impact of privatization as well as the historical identity of Iceland and the numerous factors that came together to help produce such an economic meltdown.” —Choice

Publication supported in part by the National Science Foundation