"This book examines the Thatcher government's attempt to revolutionise Britain's pensions system in the 1980s and create a nation of risk-taking savers with an individual stake in capitalism. Drawing upon recently-released archival records, it shows how the ideas motivating these reforms journeyed from the writings of neoliberal intellectuals into government and became the centrepiece of a plan to abolish significant parts of the UK's welfare state and replace these with privatised personal pensions. Revealing a government that veered between political caution and radicalism, the book explains why this revolution failed and charts the malign legacy left by the evolutionary changes that ministers salvaged from the wreckage of their reforms"--
A neoliberal revolution? examines the Thatcher government’s attempt to privatise and individualise Britain’s pension system, thereby transforming workers into risk-taking savers with a stake in capitalism. The book explains why this revolution failed and charts the malign legacy left by the evolutionary reforms which ministers salvaged from it.
This book examines the Thatcher government’s attempt to revolutionise Britain’s pensions system in the 1980s and create a nation of risk-taking savers with an individual stake in capitalism. Drawing upon recently-released archival records, it shows how the ideas motivating these reforms journeyed from the writings of neoliberal intellectuals into government and became the centrepiece of a plan to abolish significant parts of the UK’s welfare state and replace these with privatised personal pensions. Revealing a government that veered between political caution and radicalism, the book explains why this revolution failed and charts the malign legacy left by the evolutionary changes that ministers salvaged from the wreckage of their reforms.
The book contributes to understanding of policy change, Thatcherism, and international neoliberalism by showing how major reforms to social security could reflect neoliberal thought and yet profoundly disappoint their architects.
Arvustused
CHOICE Recommended: 'This capstone book by three academics widely known in modern British politics and social policy is key to understanding the policy and politics of the Thatcher era of the late 1970s and 1980s, one of the most important eras in modern British history.' M. J. Moore, emeritus, Appalachian State University -- .
Introduction
Part I The Neoliberal Vision
1 Neoliberalism and Thatcherism
2 Neoliberalism and the UK state in the 1970s
Part II The First Term
3 The institutional inheritance
4 Pensions ratchet and burden
Part III Planning a Revolution, 1983-5
5 The personal portable pension
6 The abolition of SERPS?
Part IV Implementation and Legacy
7 From revolution to evolution
8 Legacy
Conclusion -- .
Aled Davies is Darby Fellow in Modern History at Lincoln College, University of Oxford. James Freeman is Senior Lecturer in Political History and Digital Humanities at the University of Bristol. Hugh Pemberton is Emeritus Professor of Contemporary British History at the University of Bristol. -- .
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