Retrenchment: 1969–1989

Abstract

Between 1969 and 1989, the property-based welfare system initially destabilised and subsequently collapsed and was largely dismantled during a period of wider public spending retrenchment. The first of these developments was halting, uneven and protracted – it was spread across the 1970s and early 1980s – the second was short and sharp and concentrated on the final three of the years under review here. This chapter describes how the destabilisation of the property-based welfare system first became evident during the 1970s, as escalating costs particularly of homeownership supports and social housing provision became increasingly difficult for government to bear in the context of the increasing challenging world economic context and strengthening competing claims on state investment associated with the expansion of “mainstream” welfare services such as education, health and social security. By the end of the 1970s the economic and fiscal crisis became more acute. Initially this crisis generated a period of policy instability, but by the mid-1980s an unambiguous and radical policy redirection emerged and between 1986 and 1989 the property-based welfare system, which had been slowly and incrementally constructed over the course of the preceding century, was largely abolished. This chapter describes the dismantling of the property-based welfare state, the period of policy instability which preceded it and the power, legitimacy and efficiency drivers which shaped these developments.