Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search

LuvNewcastle

(16,820 posts)
Tue Apr 9, 2013, 04:42 AM Apr 2013

The Death of a Class Warrior – Margaret Thatcher (1925-2013)

Last edited Tue Apr 9, 2013, 06:19 AM - Edit history (1)

Having harnessed the full coercive powers of the state to defeat Britain’s most potent and politicised trade union, Thatcher moved to consolidate her victory. She passed legislative restrictions on picketing, strike actions and the closed shop. The trade union ‘reforms’ she instituted strengthened the hand of business and severely undermined the power and confidence of the labour movement. The left’s organisational base was further eroded by other policy innovations, now grimly familiar, such as restrictions on local government and the proliferation of quangos, the contracting out of local services and the privatisation of public utilities. In late 1984 Thatcher sold off British Telecom and she went on to sell off huge swathes of the Britain’s public infrastructure, including British Gas in December 1986, British Airways in February 1987, Rolls-Royce in May 1987, BAA in July 1987, British Steel in December 1988 and the regional water companies in December 1989.

These privatisations proved to be hugely profitable for the City of London and represented a massive transfer of wealth from public to private hands. They were carried out with a contempt for public opinion that came increasingly to characterise Thatcher’s reign. She famously described herself as a ‘conviction politician’, which in practice meant that in cabinet she was utterly intolerant of disagreement, and in government was contemptuous of all dissent. This autocratic style was not just a personal idiosyncrasy; it also reflected her underlying political philosophy – or perhaps the former attracted her to the latter. Precisely because of their peculiar notion of freedom, neoliberals have always harboured a deep suspicion of democracy. Looking back on Thatcher’s political legacy, Nigel Lawson remarked that as far as he was concerned democracy is ‘clearly less important than freedom’ and that to preserve the latter ‘strong government’ was necessary. This is precisely what Thatcher provided: a sustained, violent assault on British society launched on behalf of big business in the name of ‘strong government’ and cloaked in the rhetoric of national renewal. Her pugnacious political style would eventually prove her undoing, but there was method in her madness. Her aggression meant she was able to secure some decisive victories which could be consolidated and entrenched. She understood that the British political system afforded enough time to pursue an unpopular vanguardist strategy and betted (correctly) that social democrats would adapt to rather than challenge the profound changes she forced through.

Much has been made of the ideological power of Thatcher’s political vision, but in reality she did not seek to persuade people that ‘there is no alternative’. Rather she forced people to accept as much by attacking the social bases of collective action and ideas, emasculating those institutional forms that could make building any alternative possible or even imaginable. Like the Marxists she despised, Thatcher believed that ultimately it is the material conditions of life that determine political consciousness, and she sought therefore to bring about institutional changes which would carry with them an ideological reorientation. Hence why in an interview for the Sunday Times in May 1981 she made the chilling remark that, ‘Economics are the method; the object is to change the heart and soul.’ As Kean Birch has noted, the policy innovations in the Thatcher years represented a profound shift towards a political economy based on rising asset values rather than income. This, it was hoped, would tie people materially and ideologically to the capitalist system and create what Thatcherites, echoing Harold Macmillan, liked to call a ‘property-owning democracy’.


http://www.newleftproject.org/index.php/site/article_comments/the_death_of_a_class_warrior_margaret_thatcher_1925_2013

4 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
The Death of a Class Warrior – Margaret Thatcher (1925-2013) (Original Post) LuvNewcastle Apr 2013 OP
Link here: muriel_volestrangler Apr 2013 #1
Whoops! Thanks for posting that. LuvNewcastle Apr 2013 #2
glad shes gone RedstDem Apr 2013 #3
True T_i_B Apr 2013 #4
Latest Discussions»Issue Forums»Editorials & Other Articles»The Death of a Class Warr...