From Beveridge to Turner: Laissez-faire to neoliberalism

Current attacks on pensions can be seen as part of the neoliberal project to undermine welfare provision; but this paper argues that such attacks are nothing new. A historical comparison shows that many of the commonly held assumptions and arguments against pension provision are mistaken, and in some cases, highly misleading, with discourses or ideologies first touted in the 1940s being reused in the present period. This paper identifies those arguments that were misleading or false in the past, thus allowing us to see through them in their current forms.