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How Britain’s political economy became locked into asset-driven growth and self-imposed austerity—and why escaping it demands reimagining both democracy and the state. Introduction In the middle decades of the twentieth century, Britain built a mixed economy: one that combined industrial production, collective bargaining, and an expanding welfare state. Today, that settlement feels remote. For many citizens, the modern British economy no longer produces tangible wealth but instead circulates it—through ever-rising housing costs, private debt, and volatile financial markets. Behind the rhetoric of fiscal prudence lies a deeper structural transformation: the emergence of what political economists call the financialised and asset-based…