Histomat: Adventures in Historical Materialism

'Historical materialism is the theory of the proletarian revolution.' Georg Lukács

Tuesday, April 09, 2013

John Pilger on wealth redistribution in Britain under Thatcher

Margaret Thatcher’s government was defined by overseeing the greatest ever transfer of wealth from the bottom of society to the top. In the name of little people, she handed billions to the richest in tax cuts and de-regulation, a theft from which Britain has never recovered ... Between 1979 and 1992-3, the poorest tenth of the British population experienced a fall in their real income of 18 percent after housing costs, compared to an unprecedented rise of 61 percent for the top tenth.  According to Economic Trends, the post-war improvement of life for the poorest 'has been put into reverse [since 1979].  Income has not trickled down, but filtered up from the poorer sections of society to the richer ones'.  Put another way, since the year Margaret Thatcher came to power, more than £63 billion has been transferred, in subsidies, from the poor to the rich...
From here and Pilger's classic work, Hidden Agendas, pp 105-6. 

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