Was Life Better in Britain 50 Years Ago?

Going backwards is sometimes necessary

6 min read

Just now

Among the many narratives that serve to justify our neoliberal capitalist system, one of the most pervasive is the idea that the 1970s represented hell on earth for Britain. We’re told that the ’70s were times of massive civil unrest, inflation, industrial action and much more, all of which led to near societal collapse before we were ultimately saved by Margaret Thatcher and the birth of neoliberalism.

I actually saw some really interesting discussions about this online based on an article from the Telegraph that seemed shocked over the fact that many people in Britain today think life was better 50 years ago. A lot of people expressed concern over this, still clinging to the neoliberal narrative of the 1970s being this apparent hellish time in human history.

There is some truth to this narrative; there was considerable social unrest, industrial action, and most significantly, inflation throughout the 1970s. What should be noted here is that this is largely for reasons that neoliberals refuse to acknowledge, or they will more likely blame these things on big government, left-wing, or socialist policies that apparently existed during this time.

Global financial systems and capitalism obviously have a lot going on in them so to try and…