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The rise of a mass investment culture has been recognised by academics and contemporaries alike. Generally understood in the British context as ‘popular capitalism’, the growing numbers of individuals with a stake in stock markets on both sides of the Atlantic has been an integral part of the advent of what is loosely termed neoliberalism in contemporary societies. However, we know very little about how this mass investment culture developed and evolved in the late-twentieth century, and the relationship it fostered between the individual and the financial services industry. This thesis seeks to explore this phenomenon as it emerged in Britain, in order to highlight the limitations of popular capitalism, both as a political project and as a framework of analysis for understanding the 1980s. Instead a concept of financial consumerism is offered as a more useful lens through which to understand the changes associated with Thatcherism and neoliberal reform in Britain. In doing so, this research moves our site of analysis away from the national and Thatcher-centred bounds of the Conservative Party’s political project, and the economic ideologies of New Right think tanks and economists in Chicago, Germany and Austria. Instead, analysis centres on the actions of agents external to the Conservative Party. They transformed an ideological project designed to create self-governing citizens into a form of consumption which favoured large financial institutions at the expense of the individual consumer.

This thesis uncovers the meanings underpinning Hong Kong's 'way of life', which was enshrined in the agreement that returned the British colony to Chinese sovereignty in 1997. Using five case studies (post-Second World War geopolitics, political organisations, a place, an event, and a policy response), this thesis challenges the official narrative that Hong Kong citizens were either apolitical or primarily concerned with China-centric politics. This thesis aims to achieve four key objectives. Firstly, to place Hong Kong firmly within the context of the post-war British Empire: an era characterised by re-colonisation, de-colonisation, and the shifting global order under emerging American political primacy. Secondly, it uses Hong Kong as a case study to demonstrate that even in a highly restrictive political system, external and internal forces can exert pressure on governments and result in unanticipated - and sometimes unwelcome - policy changes. Specifically, I present Hong Kong's emerging political environment as a form of participatory non-democracy, where people participated and influenced government despite the lack of formal mechanisms. Thirdly, and most specifically, it identifies Hong Kong and Hong Kong people, rather than the Hong Kong, British, Chinese, and American governments, as the architects of the territory's 'way of life', identity, and political consciousness. Finally, it makes a case for the emergence of political consciousness and a Hong Kong 'way of life' much earlier in the 1960s and 1970s period that numerous scholars have argued.