When our world changed: work, life and the free market revolution .. and what we can learn from it

David Dimbleby revisits the history of an economic transformation in a new BBC series - story 66

The arc of my life can be divided into eras, each shaped by prevailing political and economic winds.

As a Baby Boomer the first era was defined by the optimism and stability that followed the second world war. I was born towards the tail end of that period and grew up assuming - literally, I gave it no thought - the post-war order would endure. In Britain, however, that consensus unravelled with the election of Margaret Thatcher in 1979.

So began the second era: the Thatcher years. It was a time of fierce ideological contest and radical economic experimentation.

That period, in turn, drew to a close with the Great Financial Crisis of 2008, ushering in a new, as yet undefined era of uncertainty, through which we are now living.

I was reminded of the transition out of the Boomer Years and into the Thatcher Years listening to a BBC Podcast called Invisible Hands. The series chronicles how a loose network of thinkers and politicians succeeded in making the free market an organising principle of modern life.

David Dimbleby traces the history of an idea that charts his lifespan, too. It started on a chicken farm in Sussex, gained traction in the shadows of post-war London and rose to heights of excess in the new champagne bars of the City. But who are the little-known people behind it? What did they want? And is the free market here to stay? Or are we entering a new era?

Given this is living history for me, I had so many reactions even allowing for the series' tendency towards a Whig interpretation of the past.

I had forgotten about the role played by James Goldsmith in challenging the status quo in the late 1990s. We are living in his world. His son - Zac Goldsmith - would go on to be the Conservative MP for Richmond Park including Barnes and Mortlake.

The Boomer Years came to a messy end.

The early Thatcher Years were anything but orderly. Ideas contended; luck played as much of a role as deliberate design.

Finally, like most revolutionary ideas it ended by ‘eating its own’.

Notes & thoughts

Reliving that period in the late 1970s and early 1980s, I feel - oddly - more confident about the future. Not becuase I want to live those or similar changes again. I don’t. More that it is possible to navigate through such upheavals and emerge stronger, better.