Preface

Summary

Ten years after Margaret Thatcher's death, and with her free-market or neoliberal philosophy seemingly beset by increasing conflicts and contradictions, and therefore subject to growing criticism, this is a timely opportunity to revisit her eponymous ideology. In this short book, the key concepts, objectives and policies of Thatcherism are examined, in tandem with the intellectual sources, arguments and discourse which shaped and underpinned it. The book also considers how Thatcher and her ideological adherents exercised a dominance in the Conservative Party far greater than their actual numerical strength in the 1980s, and the extent to which Thatcherism subsequently became hegemonic in the Conservative Party, particularly in terms of the continued, indeed, intensified, commitment to free-market economics, low direct taxation, privatization, deregulation, “marketization” of public services, reduced workers’ rights and employment protection to promote labour market flexibility and restore managerial authority in the workplace, and relentless attempts to reduce welfare expenditure and entitlement. So entrenched has economic neoliberalism become in the Conservative Party, that almost any problems in the British economy and society are interpreted as evidence that the Thatcherite revolution is still incomplete.

In an additional chapter, we examine some of the contradictions or unintended consequences of Thatcherism that have become increasingly evident since the 1980s. These include the manner in which the 1986 deregulation of financial services ushered in an era of unprecedented consumer borrowing and spending, which was totally at odds with Thatcher's own moral strictures about personal frugality, self-restraint and thrift; the new modes and layers of regulatory bureaucracy yielded by privatization and “marketization” of public services like education and healthcare, in spite of Thatcherite denigration of red tape and state interference; the manner in which the transformation of universities into businesses, and students into fee-paying customers, has led to a proliferation of degrees in subjects which the Conservative right view with deep disdain and disapproval, but which universities find profitable because many students (as sovereign consumers) wish to study them; the general weakening of values and virtues which Conservatives have traditionally revered and defended – community, continuity, deference, family life, organic society, reciprocal duties and responsibilities, social harmony and stability –