Abstract
Popular capitalism provides a useful case study to reveal the overt mechanisms of Thatcherism as well as the concealed and coincidental. The Party’s programmes of council house sales and privatisation have rightly been understood as a central part of popular capitalism. However, Thatcherism relied on far more than just the actions of the Conservative Party alone. This article explores the role of financial institutions in creating an institutional framework which enabled the British public to engage with popular capitalism. In doing so it builds on existing work on Thatcherism as a political and cultural project by considering both the ideological and institutional mechanisms through which economic elements of Thatcherism were normalised. In particular it explores the term ‘financial consumerism’ as a useful moniker for Thatcherism which moves beyond popular capitalism and allows a consideration of wider questions about consumer society, participation and social inclusion.
Highlights
Stuart Hall has described Thatcherism as a‘historical conjuncture’in which individual but connected phenomena consolidated during a specific historical moment3 This article argues that a substantial facet of this broader conjuncture was the aligning of party ideology with an institutional structure geared towards the self-management of personal finance The coincidence of these elements enabled the rise of ‘financial consumerism’ and the individualisation of economic responsibility
This article has built on existing work on Thatcherism as a political and social project by extending what is understood by ‘popular capitalism’ and how it functioned and unfolded during the 1980s
Share ownership provides a revealing case study of the processes through which elements of Thatcherism were given the appearance of cohering with ordinary economic behaviours
Summary
Stuart Hall has described Thatcherism as a‘historical conjuncture’in which individual but connected phenomena consolidated during a specific historical moment3 This article argues that a substantial facet of this broader conjuncture was the aligning of party ideology with an institutional structure geared towards the self-management of personal finance The coincidence of these elements enabled the rise of ‘financial consumerism’ and the individualisation of economic responsibility.
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