Ministers have been urged to privatise vast swathes of the public sector including libraries, schools, hospitals and even prisons and police stations, and transfer them to community ownership.
In a move designed to trump Margaret Thatcher's mass sell-off of council housing in the 1980s, a new report urges the sweeping transfer of state assets.
The call by centre-right think-tank ResPublica backs a radical extension of the former Prime Minister's right-to-buy policy to cover community assets and services, including leisure centres, roads and ports.
The report will be launched by Local Government minister Greg Clark in a sign that the proposals are being taken seriously in Whitehall, according to the think-tank.
Under the plans, local community groups would be given a right to buy state assets, and even keep profits from running them.
The report warns that as spending cuts become more severe there will be an "unprecedented mass divestment" of state assets including libraries, swimming pools, community halls, council offices, courts, police stations, prison buildings, roads, ports and Whitehall assets.
It states: "Public assets can and, wherever desirable, should become community assets, owned mutually or by individual shareholders or stakeholders in association with communities.
"These public goods can, if properly directed and organised, capitalise both civil society and the bottom 10% of society which currently has negative net wealth."
It added: "We have an unprecedented opportunity to lay the foundations for a truly popular and meaningful 'Big Society' by simultaneously capitalising civil society and spreading ownership.
"More importantly, we have an opportunity to achieve a bottom-up prosperity that builds resilient and independent communities capable of providing individuals with sustainable exits from poverty and entrances into wealth and well-being."
