OPEDS: Thatcher’s legacy
By Julie Hyland and Chris Marsden, wsws.org
Neither the media’s eulogies to Thatcher as a great stateswoman, nor the staging of a day of national mourning complete with military honours, can conceal the fact that she died arguably the most hated figure in British politics.
Most working people will have greeted the announcement of her demise with cold indifference, contempt, and, in some cases, celebration. Impromptu street parties were underway in several cities within hours of her death.
Comparisons have been made repeatedly between Thatcher and Winston Churchill. They are inappropriate. A right-wing defender of British imperialism, not even Churchill’s opponents would deny his obvious political stature. At a time of acute crisis, he was able to invoke history and make an appeal to social layers far beyond his natural constituency in the ruling elite. In contrast there is not a single intelligent remark that can be cited as coming from Thatcher, only inane sound-bites tailored to a supportive press such as “The lady’s not for turning.”
Margaret Hilda Roberts embodied everything that is narrow-minded and philistine in the English middle class. She was preoccupied solely with self-advancement and enrichment, owing much of her success to having secured a rich husband. Her political talents, such as they were, consisted of the nasty cunning and ruthlessness of the social climber.
Of far more interest than her personal biography are the historical circumstances that enabled such a relative non-entity and political sociopath—epitomised by her declaration, “There is no such thing as society”—to rise to such a position of prominence.
Thatcher’s ascent to the leadership of the Conservative Party in 1975 expressed the right-wing shift in British and international politics that developed with the receding of the wave of explosive class struggles that had wracked Europe between 1968 and 1975. She was the chosen vessel of the most corrupt and reactionary elements within the British ruling class—those most bitter at her predecessor Edward Heath’s defeat by the miners’ strike of 1974.
Thatcher is indelibly associated with the presidency of Ronald Reagan—with her espousal of the monetarism of Milton Friedman complementing the pursuit of “Reaganomics” in the United States. Aimed at removing all limits on private wealth accumulation, her premiership (1979-1990) was conducted under the banner of “rolling back” the frontiers of socialism. By this was meant the overturning of all the social gains won by the working class in the post-war period.
Her political appeal, such as it was, was directed primarily to a section of the upper middle class who were promised a get-rich-quick scheme to be funded by tax cuts, a fire-sale of public assets, and a speculative boom. The destruction of industry and deregulation of the City of London was accompanied by union-busting, attacks on welfare and an aggressive assertion of the interests of British imperialism. The result was mass unemployment and violent class conflict.
Among Thatcher’s crimes now being airbrushed from the historical record by the media was her key role in the death by starvation of Sinn Fein MP Bobby Sands and nine other prisoners of the British state in Northern Ireland in 1981. One year later, she launched, for electoral advantage, the war against Argentina over the Malvinas/Falkland islands, during which the retreating ARA General Belgrano light cruiser was deliberately sunk outside the exclusion zone arbitrarily imposed by the UK, at the cost of 323 lives. Thatcher’s South Atlantic adventure led to 900 deaths and forever scarred the lives of many more.
Portrayed as the “Iron Lady”, Thatcher’s great advantage, which accounted for all her much vaunted victories, was that she only ever confronted enemies that were determined to lose.
This was certainly the case with the Argentine Junta. And most important of all, her assault on the working class enjoyed the active support of the labour and trade union bureaucracy. Electorally she relied on the formation of the Social Democratic Party by a section of the Labour Party to stay in power, but above all she depended on the systematic demobilisation of mass opposition to her government by Labour in alliance with the Trades Union Congress.
This reached its climax in the isolation and betrayal of the year-long miners’ strike in 1984-85, during which some 20,000 miners were injured, 13,000 arrested, 200 imprisoned, almost 1,000 summarily sacked, and two were killed on picket lines.
The miners’ defeat was the signal for the open abandonment by the trade unions and Labour of any defence of the social interests of the working class. “New realism” became the code-word for renouncing any notion of class struggle and workers’ solidarity, the embrace of the “free market” and Labour’s transformation into an overt right-wing party of big business.
Even as Labour was busy adopting “Thatcherism”, however, her perspective was unravelling.
In the absence of any opposition from the Labour Party and the unions, it was left to her own deeply-divided party to unceremoniously dump her in 1990 in order to stave off electoral disaster. By then, the socially destructive consequences of Thatcher’s retrograde economic and social nostrums were all too apparent. In little more than a decade, the conditions of the working class had been sharply reversed in the interests of the financial aristocracy. Whole areas of the country had been turned into industrial wastelands, scarred by poverty and low-wage employment. Britain was well on the way to being transformed into a global centre for the criminal activities of the super-rich—a haven for the likes of Rupert Murdoch and innumerable Russian oligarchs.
Intellectual and cultural life was degraded almost beyond recognition.
In the ensuing years, the unstable foundations of the Thatcherite economic model—the massive accumulation of fictitious capital, unrelated to any development of economic production, and an explosion in credit-fuelled debt—were to produce a series of crises on the global stock markets. Nonetheless, Thatcher’s policies were continued and deepened by Labour under Tony Blair, her self-proclaimed political heir.
Much more can and will be said. But five years on from the 2008 financial crash, with mass austerity the order of the day, any objective appraisal makes clear that Thatcher’s real legacy is the greatest economic and social crisis wrought by capitalism since the first half of the 20th century.
Nothing whatsoever remains of her stupid and wholly insincere promises of “popular capitalism”, of Britain as a “home-owning democracy” with prosperity for all secured through the “trickle-down” of wealth and the “miracle of the market.” Posterity will record her as having presided over the initial stages of an on-going putrefaction of bourgeois social and political life.
Julie Hyland and Chris Marsden are political analysts with wsws,org, information arm of the Social Equality Party.
•••••
Thatcherism
by Stephen Lendman
Thatcherism represents Chicago School fundamentalism writ large. She’s gone. She won’t be missed. She launched a corporatist revolution. She headed Britain down a slippery slope toward unfettered predatory capitalism.
She transferred public wealth to private hands. She privatized British Telecom, British Gas, British Airways, British Steel and other state enterprises.
She force-fed deregulation. She cut social benefits. She enacted corporate-friendly tax cuts. She cracked down hard on non-believers. She waged war on labor.
In 1984, she unleashed thousands of truncheon-wielding riot police against striking coal miners. Doing so sent a message. Worker rights no longer mattered. “New realism” became code language. Free market fundamentalism was policy.
UK Prime Minister David Cameron twisted truth saying:
“Margaret Thatcher’s government was defined by taking the side of the people against the powerful, the vested interests – those whose survival depended on keeping things as they were.”
Wall Street Journal editors called her “Maggie the great….The woman who save Britain with a message of freedom.”
New York Times editors said she was “a pathbreaker from the moment she took office.” She “sparked” a “capitalist revival.”
According to Washington Post editors, she was “in every sense a leader.”
John Pilger was right saying:
“Margaret Thatcher’s government was defined by overseeing the greatest ever transfer of wealth from the bottom of society to the top.”
“In the name of little people, she handed billions to the richest in tax cuts and de-regulation, a theft from which Britain has never recovered.”
Indeed not. Millions of ordinary Brits today are worse off than ever in modern times. What Thatcher began, Tories and New Labour continue. Robbing poor Peter to pay rich Paul is policy. So is allying with America’s imperial wars.
In 1975, Thatcher rose to Conservative Party leadership. She was prime minister from May 4, 1979 to November 28, 1990. She was Britain’s longest-serving PM. She was the only woman to serve in that capacity. She waged war on social democracy.
She was called “The Iron Lady” for good reason. On October 10, 1980, she told parliament:
“To those waiting with bated breath for that favourite media catchphrase, the ‘U-turn’, I have only one thing to say: “You turn if you want to. The lady’s not for turning.”
Saying it defined her ideological harshness. It became a Thatcherite motto. She never looked back. She was unapologetic. She cared little about ordinary Brits. It showed and then some.
On January 31, 1976, she said:
“Ladies and gentlemen, I stand before you tonight in my red chiffon evening gown, my face softly made up, my fair hair gently waved – the Iron Lady of the Western World.”
“Me? A Cold War warrior? Well, yes – if that is how they wish to interpret my defense of values of freedoms fundamental to our way of life.”
On March 31, 1982, she said:
“I am extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end.”
To this day, she remains a polarizing figure. She was hardline, unbending, divisive, bellicose and heartless. She influenced South Africa’s Nelson Mandela.
After release from prison he said:
He quoted his own 1964 words, saying he was prepared to die for “a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities.”
On May 10, 1994, two weeks after taking office, he addressed parliament. He endorsed ANC Reconstruction and Development Program (RDP) socioeconomic issues.
They included democracy, growth, development, reconstruction, redistribution and reconciliation. Specific concerns were housing, healthcare, land reform, jobs, education, public works, clean water, and electrification.
He called RDP principles the “centerpiece of what this Government will seek to achieve, the focal point on which our attention will be continuously focused.”
As president, he reneged. He surrendered to finance capital. Thatcherism became policy. Promised social reforms were abandoned. Long-suffering apartheid victims were spurned.
Thatcher’s Britain became a cutthroat capitalist laboratory. She believed markets work best unfettered of rules, regulations, onerous taxes, trade barriers, and human interference.
The best government is none at all. Whatever it can do, business does better so let it. Public wealth should be in private hands. Profit-making should be unrestrained.
Corporate taxes should be cut or abolished. Social services should he curtailed or ended. Economic freedom is an end in itself. It’s indispensable toward achieving political freedom.
Union busting became policy. Waging war on labor followed. She called unions “the enemy within.” She revived jingoism. She waged war to control Argentina’s Las Malvinas.
She championed colonialism. She supported apartheid. She called the African National Congress a terrorist organization. She supported Chilean despot Augusto Pinochet.
She unleashed death squads against Northern Ireland’s Republican separatists. She let hunger striker IRA activist/British MP Bobby Sands and nine other prisoners starve to death. She didn’t give a damn if they lived or died.
She launched a neoliberal revolution. She began what’s now broken. She turned Britain into an industrial wasteland. It became deindustrialized. She helped financialize it. She initiated a process of transforming it into a low-wage service economy.
Britain today is troubled. It’s headed for tyranny and ruin. It’s a testimony to her legacy. Her ideological extremism caused widespread human wreckage.
She opposed market-interfering democracy, egalitarian principles, government-provided social services, workers free from bosses, citizens from dictatorship, and countries from colonialism.
She endorsed economic freedom as a be-all-and-end-all. She believed limited government and unrestrained profit-making refects the essence of democracy.
She called social democracy, collectivism, socialism, and welfare state economies the road to serfdom. It produces “bondage and misery.” It’s “coercion,” not “freedom.”
It was hokum. It’s what today’s ideologues profess. Exploitation is the price of “economic freedom.” It’s the flip side of unfettered capitalism. It creates horrific human wreckage.
Living standards are lowered. Vital benefits are lost. Poverty and unemployment rise. So does human misery.
Thatcherism is unforgiving. Corporatism subverts democracy. It’s the best money can buy. It’s more fantasy than reality. Free market fundamentalism alone matters.
Social decay follows. So does growing human need. Rule of law principles, human rights, and other democratic values erode. Wealth extremes become unprecedented.
Poverty, unemployment, hunger, homelessness, and deprivation grow. Out-of-control militarism rages. Corporate and government corruption flourish. Ordinary people lose out.
Checks and balances are abandoned. Money power rules. It’s unchallenged. It has final say. Media scoundrels don’t explain. They substitute managed news misinformation for truth and full disclosure.
Thatcher remained unapologetic to the end. Never have so many suffered from the ideological flimflam she endorsed.
Neoliberal poison ravages world economies. It’s globalized injustice. It reflects capitalism’s dark side. It’s worse today than ever.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached atlendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
His new book is titled “Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity.”
http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanII.html
Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com. Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.
It airs Fridays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour
Junge Welt, Neues Deutschland etc.
Junge Welt, which has been kept going despite its legacy as the notorious propaganda youth rag of the old East German Stalinist ‘Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschland’ (SED). Nota bene: that too translates into “German Unity Party”!.Perhaps one more reason why Oscar Lafontaine has sadly retreated back into the Saarland? I can only speculate from where I sit here in Toronto.
An original German wording here and there would help!
#1 Marc Bonhomme 2013-04-09 08:44 EDT
Capitalisme populaire ou socialisme ?
Are you dogs?*
They are stealing your Social Security money this week, and what are you doing about it?
Bipartisan Rampage to Steal From Elderly & Disabled
[An alert disseminated by our colleagues at The Political Film Blog]
You could very well BE that 85 year old getting screwed in this BIPARTISAN dealmaking.
It’s all about the money, who gets it and who doesn’t. Military contractors have no worries. Megabanks have no concerns. Monsanto is doing just fine. Then there’s you and your family.
In the fictional world of statistics and number rigging, the game the big institutions like to play, the Consumer Price Index is already rigged and not reflective of reality. The real cost of remaining alive in America is significantly higher than the government publishes in its reports. This new assault on Social Security cost of living adjustments will rob seniors of food and medicine.
Grand theft is now in progress, and it’s your retirement lifeline they’re stealing. Wars and the “security state” will continue their unlimited funding and spending. You, on the other hand…
ACT NOW:
Strengthen Social Security:
Tell Obama: No cuts to Social Security
Roots Action: (“If you vote to cut Social Security or Medicare benefits, I will oppose your re-election.”)
Tell Congress: Defend Social Security or Else
Bold Progress:
Tell Obama We Won’t Stand for Social Security benefit cuts
CREDO:
Tell President Obama: Don’t cut Social Security and Medicare benefits.
Campaign for America’s Future:
Tell Congress: Say No to Obama’s Social Security Cuts
PASS
THIS
SHIT
ON
POST
TO
FACEBOOK
TWITTER
ETCETERA
* If you survive long enough in Amerika, you may indeed be eating dog food.
Margaret Thatcher and misapplied death etiquette
The dictate that one ‘not speak ill of the dead’ is (at best) appropriate for private individuals, not influential public figures.
News of Margaret Thatcher‘s death this morning instantly and predictably gave rise to righteous sermons on the evils of speaking ill of her. British Labour MP Tom Watson decreed: “I hope that people on the left of politics respect a family in grief today.” Following in the footsteps of Santa Claus, Steve Hynd quickly compiled a list of all the naughty boys and girls “on the left” who dared to express criticisms of the dearly departed Prime Minister, warning that he “will continue to add to this list throughout the day”. Former Tory MP Louise Mensch, with no apparent sense of irony, invoked precepts of propriety to announce: “Pygmies of the left so predictably embarrassing yourselves, know this: not a one of your leaders will ever be globally mourned like her.”
This demand for respectful silence in the wake of a public figure’s death is not just misguided but dangerous. That one should not speak ill of the dead is arguably appropriate when a private person dies, but it is wildly inappropriate for the death of a controversial public figure, particularly one who wielded significant influence and political power. “Respecting the grief” of Thatcher’s family members is appropriate if one is friends with them or attends a wake they organize, but the protocols are fundamentally different when it comes to public discourse about the person’s life and political acts. I made this argument at length last year when Christopher Hitchens died and a speak-no-ill rule about him was instantly imposed (a rule he, more than anyone, viciously violated), and I won’t repeat that argument today; those interested can read my reasoning here.
But the key point is this: those who admire the deceased public figure (and their politics) aren’t silent at all. They are aggressively exploiting the emotions generated by the person’s death to create hagiography. Typifying these highly dubious claims about Thatcher was this (appropriately diplomatic) statement from President Obama: “The world has lost one of the great champions of freedom and liberty, and America has lost a true friend.” Those gushing depictions can be quite consequential, as it was for the week-long tidal wave of unbroken reverence that was heaped on Ronald Reagan upon his death, an episode that to this day shapes how Americans view him and the political ideas he symbolized. Demanding that no criticisms be voiced to counter that hagiography is to enable false history and a propagandistic whitewashing of bad acts, distortions that become quickly ossified and then endure by virtue of no opposition and the powerful emotions created by death. When a political leader dies, it is irresponsible in the extreme to demand that only praise be permitted but not criticisms.
Whatever else may be true of her, Thatcher engaged in incredibly consequential acts that affected millions of people around the world. She played a key role not only in bringing about the first Gulf War but also using her influence to publicly advocate for the 2003 attack on Iraq. She denounced Nelson Mandela and his ANC as “terrorists”, something even David Cameron ultimately admitted was wrong. She was a steadfast friend to brutal tyrants such as Augusto Pinochet, Saddam Hussein andIndonesian dictator General Suharto (“One of our very best and most valuable friends”). And as my Guardian colleague Seumas Milnedetailed last year, “across Britain Thatcher is still hated for the damage she inflicted – and for her political legacy of rampant inequality and greed, privatisation and social breakdown.”
To demand that all of that be ignored in the face of one-sided requiems to her nobility and greatness is a bit bullying and tyrannical, not to mention warped. As David Wearing put it this morning in satirizing these speak-no-ill-of-the-deceased moralists: “People praising Thatcher’s legacy should show some respect for her victims. Tasteless.” Tellingly, few people have trouble understanding the need for balanced commentary when the political leaders disliked by the west pass away. Here, for instance, was what the Guardian reported upon the death last month of Hugo Chavez:
Secret FDIC Plan to Loot Bank Accounts
by Stephen Lendman
J. Dimon, JP Morgan Chase’s chief, prominent banker or public enemy?
It shouldn’t surprise. It’s already policy. Market analyst Graham Summers explained. Depositor theft is coming. Europe is banker-occupied territory. So is America. Finance is a new form of warfare. It’s more powerful than standing armies. Banking giants run things. Money power has final say.
Economies are strip-mined for profit. Communities are laid waste. Ordinary people are impoverished. Even their bank accounts aren’t safe. Cypriot officials agreed to tax them. Canada, New Zealand, and Euroland member states plan doing the same thing. So does America.
Officially they’re called “bail-ins.” It’s code language for grand theft. Instead of breaking up, nationalizing, or closing down failed banks, depositor funds will keep them operating. Money printing madness can’t go on forever. Regulators, like FDIC, haven’t enough money to insure depositors. It’s simple mathematical logic.
Ordinary people and richer ones have trillions in bank accounts. It’s low-hanging fruit. It’s a treasure trove begging to be looted. Legislative shenanigans legitimize it. It’s happening offshore. It’s approved in Canada. It’s coming to America. “What happened in Cyprus isn’t a ‘one-off,’ ” said Summers. When systemic crisis hits, things happen “FAST and FURIOUS.”
Cpyriot bailout talks continued for months. “And then the entire system came unhinged in one weekend.”
Banks closed. Capital controls were imposed. People couldn’t write checks. They lost access to their money. Limited amounts only were permitted. Insiders were tipped off. They exited early. Others uninformed now suffer.
Think it can’t happen here? Think again. It’s coming. Proposed FDIC legislation lets it “TAKE CONTROL OF BANKS IT DEEMS SYSTEMATICALLY IMPORTANT AND WRITE DOWN YOUR SAVINGS (AND OTHER BANK ACCOUNTS) AS PART OF THE BAIL-IN.”
Dodd Frank financial reform capitulated to Wall Street. It did so at the expense of the economy, states, local communities, and ordinary people hit hardest. It’s wrongheaded. It provides a veneer of regulatory cover. It’s a scam. It’s laden with false diagnoses and fatal flaws. It lets Wall Street continue business as usual.
Its secret provision permits looting depositor bank accounts. Four months ago, formal strategy was drafted. It’s ready when America’s next crisis hits. Graham outlined three steps:
(1) Designate systematically important banks.
(2) Control those deemed at risk of default.
(3) Write-down depositor savings in value. In other words, loot them. Money thought safe is gone.
Few Americans understand. It’s not publicly acknowledged. Legislation already was drafted. FDIC implementation rules are ready. Eventual crisis is virtually certain. Only its timing is unknown. Now’s the time to protect assets too important to lose. Forewarned is forearmed.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
His new book is titled “Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity.”
http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanII.html // Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.
Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network. It airs Fridays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening. http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour
http://www.dailycensored.com/secret-fdic-plan-to-loot-bank-accounts/