The Social Consequences of Thatcherism As police watch in the background, picketers outside the largest coal mine in Britain hold up a poster reading “Save the Pits” during the miners’ strike of 1984 to 1985. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher broke the strike, weakening the power of Britain’s trade unions and easing the turn to free-market economic reforms. Thatcher’s neoliberal policies revived economic growth but cut state subsidies for welfare benefits and heavy industries, leading to lower living standards for many working-class Britons and, as this image attests, to popular protest.

(Peter Skingely/Bride Lane Library/Popperfoto/Getty Images)