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Meanwhile, the state’s retreat from the provision of public services and the mass sell-off of social housing have increased the cost of living for households, without increasing productive investment. Rising utilities bills, transport costs, and care costs have all eaten away at households’ already…

The steady privatisation of public spending around the world was recently identified by the UN as the source of pervasive human rights abuses.29 The UN’s expert panel claimed that “[g]overnments trade short-term deficits for windfall profits and push financial liabilities on future generations”. Ne…

At the same time, the state was retreating from providing the kind of social security that had been a hallmark of the post-war era. Risks that had formerly been socialised were privatised, encouraging middle-earners to “think like capitalists” in planning and insuring for risks. Private health insu…

From the start, this project was cloaked in the language of “efficiency”, “modernisation”, and — most pernicious of all — “economic freedom”.14 Thatcher’s groupies argued that the unions were vested interests getting in the way of the operation of the free market. The neoclassical theory of wage de…

From the start, this project was cloaked in the language of “efficiency”, “modernisation”, and — most pernicious of all — “economic freedom”.14 Thatcher’s groupies argued that the unions were vested interests getting in the way of the operation of the free market. The neoclassical theory of wage de…