Post-Crisis Technocratic Vigilantism: New Unconventional Roles of Central Bankers

Since the 2007 financial crisis central bankers in all major capitalist economies have introduced what they themselves call "unconventional monetary policies" to prevent a catastrophic collapse of financial markets and restore economic normality. Bernanke in the US, Darighi in the euro zone, King and then his successor Carney in the UK, and Kuroda in Japan have almost become household names through their heroic acts of quantitative easing that involved injection of  trillions of dollars into the financial system and recently through their communicative weapons called “forward guidance”.  Increasingly these unconventional monetary policies of central bankers attract public debate because there are concerns about their allocative and distributive implications as well as their democratic legitimacy.  In this paper I will develop a cultural economy framework based on the figure of superhero vigilante to discuss the transformation of central bankers from independent technocrats responsible for inflation targeting to public servants fighting against the economic forces that threaten the collapse of financialized capitalism.  What we witness here is blurring of identity and role at sociologically and economically underexamined public servant whom the financial crisis empowered in a very ambiguous and contestable way.