ABSTRACT
The privatization programme has been specifically designed not merely to resuscitate economic vitality but also to promote the vigorous virtues in individuals, to strengthen the family, and to bring the paradigm shift to bear on industrial policy. The Thatcherite aim to use the privatization programme as a means of promoting the vigorous virtues in individuals is in fact already well known though by a different name: popular capitalism. The contribution of mass privatizations to the promotion of popular capitalism and the vigorous virtues was undoubtedly a matter of discovery rather than premeditated invention for Thatcherites. The economic motive for privatization - the Thatcherite wish to use it as a tool for restoring vitality to the British economy - is evident not only in the rhetoric but also in the practice. Ownership by an individual of assets, above all his or her own home, should make that individual more independent, and not only financially.
