In an increasingly stringent welfare system, Alex Niven reflects on how the political conditions of postwar Britain nurtured an ideal breeding ground for experimental art.
When John Lydon sang in 1976 that anarchy was coming to the UK, he wasn’t far wrong. Genuine anarchism (a noble political tradition) certainly didn’t descend on Britain in the wake of punk rock and Margaret Thatcher’s general election victory three years later. But since 1979, the consensus that the British state should empower individuals through social security (such as the “council tenancy” Lydon sneered at in Anarchy in the UK) has been steadily unpicked by Thatcher and her successors – a triumph for laissez-faire anti-statism, if not quite anarchy itself.
The irony is that countercultural outbursts like punk were really enabled by the statist policies of postwar Britain. For all that countless artists, musicians and writers from the 50s to the 80s saw government as the enemy and thought they were mavericks railing against the system, the flourishing culture of the period was very much a product of the welfare state and its nurturing social infrastructures.
Many in Lydon’s generation went to university or art school without paying anything; others had their fees heavily subsidised by the state. Budgets for local drama and public art projects were far more generous. Beneath all this was the safety net of full employment, dole and affordable housing...Keep reading on The Guardian.
When John Lydon sang in 1976 that anarchy was coming to the UK, he wasn’t far wrong. Genuine anarchism (a noble political tradition) certainly didn’t descend on Britain in the wake of punk rock and Margaret Thatcher’s general election victory three years later. But since 1979, the consensus that the British state should empower individuals through social security (such as the “council tenancy” Lydon sneered at in Anarchy in the UK) has been steadily unpicked by Thatcher and her successors – a triumph for laissez-faire anti-statism, if not quite anarchy itself.
The irony is that countercultural outbursts like punk were really enabled by the statist policies of postwar Britain. For all that countless artists, musicians and writers from the 50s to the 80s saw government as the enemy and thought they were mavericks railing against the system, the flourishing culture of the period was very much a product of the welfare state and its nurturing social infrastructures.
Many in Lydon’s generation went to university or art school without paying anything; others had their fees heavily subsidised by the state. Budgets for local drama and public art projects were far more generous. Beneath all this was the safety net of full employment, dole and affordable housing...Keep reading on The Guardian.