Financial Justice: The People’s Campaign to Stop Lender Abuse

Family and consumer studies professor and sociologist Dr. Robert Mayer has recently co-authored a new book titled Financial Justice: The People’s Campaign to Stop Lender Abuse.

Based on his general interests in consumer movements, Mayer’s book focuses on the establishment of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), a portion of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and the Consumer Protection Act of 2010. Mayer explains, "It’s a political story about the legislative journey of the idea of creating a new agency to help consumers avoid the abuses in the financial industry, many of which contributed to the mortgage meltdown and Great Recession.

When asked what his primary motivation for writing the book, Mayer states, "I wanted to tell a good news story about the good guys winning against a powerful foe, and then be able to ask, ‘What does this tell us for the future?’ He then adds, "The creation of this new agency was, in my view, the most important accomplishment of the U.S. consumer movement in at least 20 years, and I think you could argue 30 years, and understanding how it came about is essential in understanding not only the consumer movement, but similar kinds of movements like the environmental movement that have some of the same dynamics.

Financial Justice includes interviews from various people who were central to the campaign to create the new agency including leaders from the consumer, labor, civil rights, and community development movements. Two of the most important individuals in the campaign were: Elizabeth Warren, newly elected Senator of Massachusetts, and executive director of Americans for Financial Reform (AFR) Heather Booth. Mayer elaborates, "Elizabeth Warren came up with the idea for a new consumer agency in 2007 and published an article on the reasons why it was necessary. In 2008, she got a couple of congressmen to introduce a bill that unfortunately went nowhere. Then, in 2009, President Obama was elected and the need for some kind of financial reform became more generally accepted, and the idea of a new agency was folded into the Dodd-Frank Act. From there, the campaign took on a life of its own." He moves on to discuss Booth by saying, "Her contribution was critical to the campaign. Booth has been a leader in the labor movement, women’s movement, anti-war movement—virtually all of the progressive movements in the past 40 years. She was brought in by the CFPB campaign to organize and gain the trust of the disparate social movements involved.

Mayer quickly summarizes the outcome of the campaign by saying, "Between the involvement of Booth and Warren, as well as those from 200 various organizations from the consumer, labor, civil rights, community development movements, and even the military, the campaign built public support for financial reform, worked effectively with the Obama Administration, and pressured Congress to pass the Dodd-Frank Act.

Financial Justice was co-authored by Larry Kirsch. "What’s interesting about him is that we complement each other. I’m a sociologist; he’s an economist. He has spent most of his career studying healthcare, whereas mine has been focused on practically every consumer issue except healthcare. We didn’t agree on everything, but that’s part of the creative process and we made a very nice team, Mayer explains.

As far as benefits from reading the book, Mayer hopes that people will be able to see inside a campaign based on the accounts of the people who made it happen, as well as gain an appreciation for the role of outside groups in the legislative process. He concludes by saying, "It’s a David and Goliath kind of story, where the reader can see that positive and reaffirming things actually can happen. The story is an antidote for all the people who view the legislative process as dysfunctional.

Financial Justice will include a foreword by Representative Barney Frank and an afterword based on an interview with Senator Elizabeth Warren. The book will be published by Praeger and made available to the general public in May 2013.

Dr. Robert Mayer has been at the University of Utah for 36 years. In that time, he has written and edited several books, served on boards of national organizations, and received the CSBS Superior Teaching and Superior Research Awards, as well as the University of Utah Distinguished Teaching Award.