Are We Rich Yet? The Rise of Mass Investment Culture in Contemporary Britain. By Amy Edwards

Abstract

Are We Rich Yet? is a wonderful corrective to the idea that Britain became a financialized society in the late twentieth century simply as a result of the neoliberal policies of government. Yes, there was an explosion of investment culture from the 1980s, but Edwards seeks to avoid ‘falling into the trap of assuming the inevitability and immutability of right-wing political reform under the Thatcher governments after 1979’ (p. 3). Instead, she shows that the ground for investment opportunities in financial markets had been laid over more than a century and investor numbers grew gradually before rapidly taking off in the 1980s. Moreover, the take-off then had much to do with the roles of the financial press, high street banks, and assorted forms of popular culture. This is to decentre Thatcherism in accordance with much of the recent re-thinking of this period by historians of modern Britain. By tracing an investment climate which evolved over time and exploring the different experiences of various investors and investor groups, Edwards demonstrates that a small percentage of Britons were already active participants in financial markets by the 1980s. Ostensibly then, some of them were nascent financial subjects ripe for the shareholding opportunities presented by the large-scale privatizations of nationalized industries. Ironically, however, they were rendered less, not more, autonomous in their financial decision making from the 1980s. Increasingly, it became difficult for individuals to act independently of large financial institutions, not least because these institutions responded to the opportunities and threats of deregulation and increased competition by re-shaping themselves. This involved them expanding their remits to suck in a mass of (previously untargeted) ‘ordinary’ people as investors, for example, by opening share shops in shopping centres. Individuals’ investments were then massed into institutionally managed portfolios; institutions also hoovered up shares as people sought a quick return on their foray into investments in privatized companies. Accordingly, rather than creating a true share-owing democracy, Thatcherite reforms empowered financial institutions that increasingly mediated the relationship between people, their investments, and the companies they invested in. Ultimately, this was to the detriment of industry and disenfranchising for individual shareholders.