The Liberal Collectivist Experiment

Abstract

This chapter provides an overview of the historical development of UK pensions provision, focusing on the main philosophical or ideological foundations of different elements of provision, how they fit together, how they have evolved, and the major policy initiatives that have both instituted and transformed UK pensions provision at different points in time. It focuses primarily on the post-war period, but actually locates the genesis of UK pensions provision in the seventeenth century, and details the birth of occupational pensions provision in the late nineteenth century. The chapter shows that the UK policy elite’s commitment to a liberal market order both shaped and constrained the development of public and private pensions provision—providing for a fragile patchwork of institutional and industrial practices, which were unravelled by the emergence of neoliberalism. Overall, the chapter situates the development of UK private pensions provision within the context of shifts within productive activity and industrial relations.