The sudden proliferation of ‘payday loan’ providers is not a complex phenomenon. The emergence of QuikQuid, Payday UK and Wonga in ad breaks and on billboards, in tube carriages and on motorway hoardings, is easily attributable to the financial straits that many have found themselves in, as personal debt piles up and banks halt the easy credit of the past decade.

These companies offer small cash advances to help with this bill or that extra night in the pub – the extraordinarily high interest (Wonga – 1734% APR) a seemingly small price to pay for such fast, impersonal and accessible service. Leaving aside such astronomical rates – which might certainly be seen as taking advantage of those least able to help themselves – the rise of payday loans are encouraging a greater, and ultimately far more damaging, social trend.

By marketing the ready availability of cash, Wonga and its bedfellows are promoting a culture of individual and instant gratification over individual and social responsibility. Their adverts revolve around the importance of status, encouraging a trend of flagrancy that sits in full opposition to current financial needs.

Such desires for gratification have always existed, but have been kept in check through a range of devices. The social embarrassment of having to ask for money – going to the bank manager for a loan – was a humiliating experience to be avoided. Credit cards, long a source of quick loans, are increasingly hard to obtain, with providers becoming more wary as returns diminish and defaults increase. Where Wonga et al. differ from such pre-existing forms of easy credit is a business model that involves a seductive combination of availability, anonymity and speed of delivery.

Their model has two distinct outcomes. First, it makes debt readily accessible. Need money for the pub this evening? It'll be in your account in 15 minutes. Second, by scrapping any personal interaction, the stigma of going into debt is reduced. No-one, except a computer system, needs know that you can't really afford that next glass of wine.

Together, these characteristics have dramatically lowered the threshold of practical and social difficulty for obtaining cash, even for those on low incomes. It has consequently reduced the credibility of the excuse 'I can't afford it', forcing the individual to make a conscious choice: 'I don't want to pay for that'. This is hard – saying no to friends and family is difficult – and as such, greater strength of character is required in order to make a responsible choice. Those with less self-discipline – or the more vulnerable – thus have a much harder time being financially prudent.

This then is the corrosive effect of payday loans: it is now more embarrassing to be seen as financially responsible than to be in debt. Speed and anonymity combine to make it far easier and simpler to borrow money than it is to tell your friends you can't stand them another pint.

Not that debt is intrinsically bad. Much investment that grows economies relies on debt, especially in small businesses that provide 60% of UK jobs. Taking out a loan may be necessary in order to obtain big-ticket items – cars, white goods and televisions. Loans can increase living standards.

But all debt carries risk, and payday loans, with such scanty appraisals of clientele (“15 min cash payout guaranteed!”) have tipped the balance from considered, acceptable risk towards irresponsible speculation. Those who want to know how that's worked out in the past might look at the causes of the current financial mess.

In his first speech as Prime Minister, David Cameron set out his priorities: ‘I want to help try and build a more responsible society here in Britain, one where we don't just ask what are my entitlements but what are my responsibilities, one where we don't ask what am I just owed but more what can I give’. The neo-liberal consensus has opted for individual responsibility as a cornerstone of its social and economic policy – we must all be ready to do our bit to help get out of the hole dug in the years of profligate overspending.

Yet Wonga, Payday UK and friends, ironically advertised as individual solutions to the financial crisis, are in fact undermining the core basis of this economic responsibility that must be the lynchpin of further economic growth. By encouraging the worrying social shift that sees debt as the acceptable, unembarrassing norm, payday loan companies encourage an unsustainable irresponsibility that will serve only to strengthen the system of bad debt ultimately responsible for our current fiscal condition. They must not be allowed to do so.