Since our current economics crisis begun, I’ve continually seen “experts”, “economists”, and media anchors talk about how the current dip in the stock market is caused by the “irrationality” of investors who are pulling their money out of companies which those experts consider to be “sound” investments. Oil companies who’ve been raking in huge profits are cited as one example of a sound investment (another topic all together!) from which people are “irrationally” pulling their money.

This is a common theme among elites. While in this case they were referring mostly to investors, which includes those who’s companies or nonprofits have their pension funds invested in the market, the argument (and variants of it) are used for all sorts of  decisions that people make. Low-income people vote for Republicans? Democratic Party leaders say they must be irrational. Social anxiety? You must be irrational. Pulling your money out of “sound” investments? You must be irrational.

I always get bothered when this topic comes up. Rather than being “irrational”, these people are making quite rational decisions in the context of utterly irrational social institutions. Of course “experts” have to blame it on the individual. In times of crisis when people are making rational and panicked decisions, elites need to call their decisions “irrational”, taking advantage of long-seeded narratives about “personal responsibility” and individualism, in order to prevent people from making connections about the irrational systems we live under and starting to value solidarity and cooperation over competition and individualism.