'Survival Capitalism' and the Big Bang - (New Perspectives on the Right) by Emma Barrett (Paperback)

About the Book

Survival Capitalism is a cultural history of the 1980s financial revolution. It ranges in scope across the Thatcher government, the Bank of England, London Stock Exchange and member firms, and Lloyd's of London. It offers timely new perspectives on the City of London's Big Bang reforms as the Conservatives contemplate Big Bang 2.0 in the 2020s.

Book Synopsis

This book about the Thatcher government and the City of London tells the compelling human story of the people and processes that made Britain's 1980s financial revolution. Fusing insider testimony with new archival discoveries, it examines high stakes and networked solutions, and uncovers new objectives that drove reforms. In so doing it demystifies a major shift in capitalism. This has implications for our understandings of government and capitalism, from the way we think about the origins of subsequent financial crises to today's growing inequalities.
Survival Capitalism offers new insights into the last major restructuring of the City, disrupts myths surrounding the logics of the market, and pays attention to people and processes at a time when the City of London again faces major change as Britain seeks to find its place outside the European Union in the wake of Brexit.

From the Back Cover

The 1980s financial revolution placed the UK at the vanguard of neoliberal free market reforms and is celebrated on the Right as a high point in capitalism. Usually, it is understood as the inevitable outcome of New Right ideas, global economic shifts, new technologies and free-flowing capital. Using archival sources and in-depth interviews, this book brings to life the people and processes involved in the making of the financial revolution.
'Survival Capitalism' and the Big Bang demonstrates the high stakes for capitalist institutions, and unfolding responses to existential threats and opportunities. It offers insights into struggles and alternative possibilities and shows just how contingent outcomes were. Financial reforms are associated with the Thatcher government's supply side reforms. However, this volume shows how the Government's quest for autonomy and monetary credibility, when faced with problems of selling debt, impacted the stock market mechanism. It exposes the macroeconomic concerns which drove reforms in parallel with microeconomic drivers. This focus affirms that international capital and new technologies were not merely catalysts for change; they were harnessed by the nation state to support the domestic agenda.

By restoring intent to this history, 'Survival Capitalism' offers new perspectives on Thatcherism and its legacies. The focus on people and processes de-mystifies the perception of the 'inevitable' march of market forces and explains the survival of the cultures of capitalism.

Review Quotes

'Outstanding, innovative and compelling'
-- Hugh Pemberton, Emeritus Professor of Contemporary British History, University of Bristol
'Incisive and insightful ... a cracking read'
-- Lawrence Black, Professor of Modern History, University of York
A 'proper narrative of what actually happened' imparting 'a whiff of actually being there'
--Thatcher insider Sir Adam Ridley

About the Author

Dr Emma Barrett is Arts and Law Teaching Fellow and Honorary Research Fellow in History at the University of Birmingham and former John Antcliffe By-Fellow at Churchill College, Cambridge.