WHEN I WAS growing up in a single-parent family in 1980s Britain, my mother and I were proud of our flat. It was state-owned, so we rented it from our local council (government), but it will forever be the special backdrop of my childhood memories. There was always something missing, though: It wasn’t ours.
Over the years we tried to improve the property, redecorating rooms and tending to a small garden. Many others, knowing that the state was their faceless, forever landlord, allowed their properties to fall into disrepair. Litter, graffiti, and general urban decay adorned many neighborhoods in my town.
Prior to 1980, Britain labored under big government policies that saw huge swaths of the economy—including housing—in government rather than private hands.
But Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher changed that with her flagship “Right-to-Buy” housing reform policy. Right-to-Buy allowed people living in social housing units to easily purchase their homes from their local council at a discount.
Researching the legacy of Thatcher’s flagship housing policy can bring up a parade of terror-inducing media characterizations:
“The housing crisis that Thatcher built.”
“Thatcher’s crusade to wipe out council housing.”
“The human cost of the Right-to-Buy housing crisis.”
Based on the media stories, you might think we Brits now mostly live in caves, cursing Thatcher’s name for promoting home ownership.
But since Right-to-Buy was enacted, more than 1.5 million former government homes have been sold to their tenants. For the first time in their lives, many Brits own a stake in their family’s future.
My mother is now one of those homeowners. A few years ago, she was able to purchase her flat and will soon be able to sell it and fulfill her dream of retiring to a small cottage in Wales or the Lake District.
Many criticisms of Right-to-Buy are actually complaints about the effects of the socialist housing policies that made Right-to-Buy a necessity in the first place. Government housing policies—supposedly meant to help low-income residents—have caused severe housing shortages in London and Southeast England. And unfortunately, the U.S. didn’t learn from Britain’s mistakes— the same government-policy-induced housing shortages exist in major U.S. cities such as Seattle, New York, and San Francisco.
America is a testament to the economic dynamism and creativity that only free markets can deliver. I moved to the United States inspired by the individual liberty and freedom that I glimpsed with policies like Right-to-Buy. And now I am proud to fight for economic liberty on this side of the Atlantic.
But Americans must not take their freedom for granted. I saw firsthand how failed socialist policies slowly crushed so much of Britain’s prosperity for so long. There’s no doubt that giving into those failed big-government promises would do the same damage here.
