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STUDY OF BRITAIN (1945-1990) (KEY TERMS (Welfare State: expenditures by…

- - - - The extent to which the relationship between the individual and the state, as well as the individual’s way of thinking about that relationship, are fundamentally changed
        
        Thatcher questioned the place of the law in the lives of British people, declaring: “There can be no freedom without law [...] only the power of the strong to oppress the weak”
        
        1981 : Thatcher’s government sells British Aerospace and other companies. Thatcher encouraged “popular capitalism” (the ownership of shares by “ordinary people”): a company that has workers owning shares has less striking and better industrial relations. This created a new industry worth £30 billion.
        
        Thatcher's attack on consensus politics formed a key part of her policy. Thatcher regarded consensus politics as “an attempt to satisfy people holding no particular views about nothing” and felt that Britain’s inefficiency and low growth was a direct result of this policy. For this reason, during her term in office Thatcher embarked on a policy of radical change and reform which aimed to return initiative and accountability to the individual.
      - The extent to which the revolution institutionalises itself, taking hold in the hearts and minds of the people, and shifts the very terms and centre of the debate, so that a return to the previous status quo is impossible
        
        1980 : Local Government Planning and Land Act. Secretary of State can force local governments to sell unused or underused property (over 6 years enough land was freed to build 52 000 homes)
        
        1991: over 50% of the public industrial sector had been transferred to the private sector, moving 650 000 workers from public to private sector enterprises, in which 90% were now shareholders
        
        Thatcher’s legacy is strong: socialism significantly lost popularity after her time as Prime Minister, a new generation of Conservatives planned further advances against the welfare state, and even the opposed Labour Party admitted the virtues of free market and individualism
        
        Thatcherism’s greatest economic legacy was its success in weakening the power of the trade unions (=syndicats). The trade unions, set up to protect the weak against the strong, had become, by the 1970s, enemies of economic progress and a massive force of social conservatism. By the 1970s the trade unions had gained such a political force that Edward Health (PM 1970-1974) even questioned “who governs Britain?” Unlike governments preceding Thatcher’s, the Thatcher government had a much harsher stance against the militancy of the trade unions. Thatcher’s ability to curb the power of the trade unions economically improved Britain since fewer working days were lost due to strike (by 1983 the number of days lost was the lowest since the war). The fall in trade union power also gave more power to the Thatcher government to continue reforming Britain.
        
        During Thatcher’s later years Britain saw an economic boom and a rise in consumerism. Thatcher’s policies of liberalisation and privatisation allowed for a significant grow in Britain service industry which compensated for the “de-industrialisation” of Britain’s old industry.
      - The extent to which ideas and changes that were previously unthinkable are now possible, and a new generation of thinkers and leaders is inspired to pursue those ideas
        
        Thatcher ushered in a real revolution by challenging the two sacred cows of contemporary economic thought, the Keynesian notion that endless prosperity could be assured by giving state handouts to those who were out of work, and the Marxist view that this should be financed by expropriating the earnings and savings of those in work.
        
        From a conservative and economic point of view Thatcher’s policy of privatisation was extremely successful. Indeed between 1988 and 1989 the British government derived over £7 billion from privatisation, which dramatically improved Britain’s economic situation.
        
        Thatcher’s economic reforms were in fact in line with Milton Friedman economic theory of monetarism whereby inflation, not unemployment was the main thing that stopped an economy from developing. Monetarism, an untested policy outside the military dictatorship of Chile, was an example of Thatcher’s “economic shock therapy”. Monetarism was a revolutionary policy that despite causing a short-term economic downturn allowed Britain’s economy to escape the “stop and go” cycle which was a key cause of Britain economic decline in the 1960s and 1970s.