Bringing back Thrift Week: Neo-liberalism and the rediscovery of thrift

• The paper examines and compares 19th-century and modern drives to promote savings.
• It finds parallels between Victorian British and US Republican initiatives.
• It argues that both blame poverty on moral failure, not economic disadvantage.
• Modern promotion of savings seen as a neo-liberal strategy.

The paper examines and compares the movements for promoting working-class savings in the modern USA and in Great Britain in the 19th century. It explores the use of savings as a technology for managing individuals’ behaviour and motives and the nature of the government objectives which are served by these parallel projects.