The moral economy of post-socialist capitalism: professionals, rentiers and fraud

This chapter examines the fraudulent nature of professional and financial elites’ practices in post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan, focusing on a range of actors from doctors and lecturers to bankers and property developers. It explains how neoliberalism can shape their moral judgements about what are legitimate and illegitimate economic practices, and discusses how their practices can produce negative social consequences. The marketisation and financialisation of the economy can normalise economic practices (such as usury and economic rent) that were previously deemed to be illegitimate, fraudulent and harmful.