Cast your mind back to 1066 - the Norman conquest - the Norman barons took vast tracts of land & imposed serfdom on the population. The British became peasants working for foreigners.
Military might stayed with the barons & the RCC exerted religious control & demanded labour & tithes. A peasants' revolt was defeated - 1381.
The Reformation did not help the peasants - king Henry used his desire for a divorce to make himself head of the church, & as a result monasteries were destroyed, & their wealth & lands taken over by the king & various landowners - 1536-41. The peasants did not benefit - the monastries were major employers & the result was a generation of "sturdy beggars" fit to work but without land to work on.
The civil war - 1640-46 - broke the power of the king but again provided no benefit to the peasants who having fought on the parliament side wanted a share of the captured estates. The "Levellers" were driven off their attempts to squat & run communal farms. Many were pressed into the army & sent to Ireland to suppress the RCs there. The legacy of hatred continues today.
Protests took over the Irish lands & suppressed the RC population. Desperate famines -1845 - resulted in mass emigration to the US.
In England the various "enclosure acts" resulted in common land being taken over by the landowners for non-food purposes, leading to further poverty -
They hang the man & flog the woman
who steals the goose from off the common,
but leave the greater villain loose,
who steals the common from the goose.
Vast numbers of destitute peasants were transported as criminals to the colonies for minor offences such as "stealing" wild animals & birds from the landowners. Some industries were established, bringing peasants off the land into slum districts, weaving, spinning, mining, & the great industries - railways & & iron & steel. Soldiers & sailors were always needed, but such occupations were not secure.
By the late 1800s various political-socialist-liberal movements were set up to try to get a measure of stability - a powerful rallying cry was "Three acres & a cow" claiming that if the unproductive great estates were divided, there would be plenty for all. Otherwise if you couldn't work for any reason, only the workhouse was available. Elderly couples could not grow old together - men, women & children were separated.
Then came WW1, the inter war depression & WW2.
The popular post war vote went to the Labour party who with wise use of the limited resources were able to set up the National Health Service, free education, grants for university students, with tuition fees paid, with industries being nationalised, so profits were kept in the country & employment & funds from taxation were adequate for the national needs.
Even the Conservatives fought elections with the slogan "you've never had it so good."
Thatcher came to power - 1979 - & set about destroying all that had been achieved, selling off the country's assets. That is the cause of the present crisis. The post war redistribution of wealth has been reversed.