"Credit and Worthiness": Forming and Organizing Subjects in the Credit Economy

"Creditworthiness" is a knowledge object central to the establishment of a leveraged economy over the last century, that has nevertheless gone relatively unexamined. In this thesis, I assert that "creditworthiness" is a conceptual knowledge object around which subjects unique to the consumption economy are formed. In support of this theoretical framework, I offer two case studies: 1) the establishment of creditworthiness through the FHA based on racial underwriting, subsequent "block-busting" practices, and the Community Reinvestment Act, and 2) the Fringe Economy of Alternative Financial Services today. These histories and ongoing dynamics reveal "creditworthiness" as a constructed knowledge intersecting with and mirroring race as a discursive market technology. I argue that "creditworthiness" is used to form market subjects from which wealth is systemically siphoned, a practice necessary to the credit-based economy at large.