The Political Physicist

I made the mistake today of voicing my distinctly anti-Thatcher views. For those of you who don’t know, Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister in the UK during the ‘80s and oversaw the implementation of neoliberalism. She succeeded in crushing the trade unions, scaling back the welfare state, deregulating the financial sector, deindustrialising Britain, and privatising a substantial portion of public assets (including utilities, airlines, buses, coal mines, steel manufacturing, and aerospace, among other things). These policies saw a massive increase in income inequality and unemployment and are often referred to as “class warfare from above.” Anyway, I received a (fairly typical) response that Thatcher saved Britain for anarchy and bankruptcy and that while her policies were unpleasant at the time, they were necessary. There are even plenty of people on the centre-left who say things like this. It irritates me to no end, but I figured that it was best to avoid getting dragged into a political debate in public. Of course, this being me, it continued to bother me through the day, so I’ve written some of my thoughts on the matter here.

Now, to be fair, Britain’s economy was a mess before she came in. It was also a mess for quite awhile after she came in. In fact, initially she made things worse. When the recovery did come it was on the back of the finance “industry,” and we all know how that turned out… However, there is no denying that the British economy was in need of major restructuring. Maggie famously justified her policies by saying that “There is no alternative.” This is often referred to as TINA and this is what the Thatcher-apologists have unwittingly bought into. And, in a sense, they aren’t wrong. There was no alternative—if we insisted on maintaining capitalism.

However, at about the same time that the Thatcherites came to power we also saw the rise of the Bennites. They were a left-wing movement within the Labour Party, centred around the MP Tony Benn. They advocated nationalising the financial institutions and much of large industry. These new public enterprises were to be administered by the workers. They felt that these measures, combined with a degree of industrial planning (which would, if I recall, have seen a substantial retooling of factories) and import substitution would help to restart Britain’s economy. Actually, the Labour Party was elected in the 1970s on a watered-down version of this platform. However, they did not have the guts to pursue it and instead implemented an early, watered-down version of Thatcherism. This prompted a massive strike-wave, referred to as The Winter of Discontent (the anarchy to which Thatcher apologists refer). The irony is that the Labour Party brought it upon themselves. There were alternatives proposed. At least one was even put forward the Cabinet by Tony Benn, but was viewed as too radical.

So, you can not justify what Margaret Thatcher did by saying that it was what was necessary in order to get Britain back on track. There were other options available which were never tried. What was true, however, was that the post-War class-compromise (the Keynesian mixed-economy) had outlive its usefulness. As the ‘80s dawned, class struggle was destined to begin anew. The likes of Tony Benn tried, and very nearly succeeded, at leading the working class to victory. However, Mrs. Thatcher was more successful with her ruling-class offensive. When you apologise for Thatcher, this class warfare from above is what you are justifying. I suspect, or at least hope, that fewer people would be willing to defend her if they thought of it that way.

PS: I have a certain fondness for all of the protests songs written about Margaret Thatcher. Here are a few of my favourites: