The rise and fall of the property-owning democracy (UK)

``[The rise in poverty and inequality] was precisely what the property-owning democracy was designed to stop. Aspirational working class people were supposed to identify with those further up the income scale, not those further down. But the rise in the proportion of home owners soon petered out. Council house sales didn't create a home-owning democracy. When those who bought sold out and retired, the buy-to-let barons moved in. Those who might have owned twenty years ago now rent from private landlords and benefit dependency is no longer confined to the very poor.''