A neoliberal revolution?

Thatcherism and the reform of British pensions
A neoliberal revolution? examines the Thatcher governments attempt to privatise and individualise Britains 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 governments attempt to revolutionise Britains 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 UKs welfare state and replace these with privatised personal pensions. Revealing a government that veered between poli