ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how schooling after 1945 can be understood as a response to changes in the nature of British capitalism. In economic terms, the years after 1945 can be divided into a series of distinct phases. The industrial structure of the British economy was changing too: the power of trades' unions was effectively broken, and a new consumer economy emerged for those able to benefit from the share options of the newly privatised industries. The debate over the meaning of the English riots is important because it hints at the political role that schooling plays in any attempt to bring about a new political and economic settlement. Arguments about the changing realities of Britain's political economy came to the fore in the 1990s as the Labour Party sought to overcome the crisis precipitated by consecutive electoral defeats in 1983, 1987 and 1992. The making of new Labour required the careful construction of a binary opposition between past and present.
