I had a bit of an eerie experience this week. My daughter and I attended the play Billy Elliot in Vancouver. This amazing musical is the story of a young boy who dreams of becoming a ballet dancer. The story is set against the backdrop of the miners' strike in northern England in the early 1980s when Margaret Thatcher tried to break the unions. In one part of the play a giant puppet of Thatcher appears and the cast sings a very unflattering song that celebrates being one day closer to her death. As you can imagine I felt a bit strange when I woke to the news that she had indeed passed away the very night that we were in the theatre.
Much has been written about her passing over the last week in many newspapers, including this one, and much has been discussed in terms of her legacy. I have found the commentary very interesting and I have thought a great deal about what I would like students to know about Margaret Thatcher. The truth is that she started an ideological revolution that has come to define 21st century western politics.
In the early 1980s political scientists were using the term "neo-conservative" to describe her approach to public policy. The old 1986 version of the well known introductory politics textbook by Dickerson and Flanagan tells us that neo-conservativism was coined in the United States by some individuals who were "disenchanted with recent developments in liberalism." Primarily these individuals were concerned about the growth and breadth of the demands on the welfare state. As a result, ideas about reducing the size of the state as well as reducing state regulation and encouraging privatization became central to neo-conservativism. When Thatcher rose to power her policy approach appeared to mirror these basic principles of neo-conservativism except in one particular area. In the United States, the neo-conservatives were concerned about the rise of the 'liberal" state and they began to articulate a "moral" (or moral majority) position that promoted the return of a "conservative" or traditional social ethic. This was not replicated in Britain. Margaret Thatcher's views were actually more neo-liberal than neo-conservative.
Neo-liberalism is an ideology that draws upon the ideas of classical liberalism. Neoliberals are primarily concerned with "getting the state out of the way" of trade and free enterprise. They want to shift personal responsibility to the individual and away from the state. Thatcher is famous for saying, "I think we have gone through a period when too many children and people have been given to understand "I have a problem, it is the Government's job to cope with it!" or "I have a problem, I will go and get a grant to cope with it!" "I am homeless, the Government must house me!" and so they are casting their problems on society and who is society? There is no such thing!" There are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first... There is no such thing as society."
Most commentators stop reading here but the quote continues: "There is a living tapestry of men and women and people and the beauty of that tapestry and the quality of our lives will depend upon how much each of us is prepared to take responsibility for ourselves and each of us prepared to turn round and help by our own efforts those who are unfortunate." Here she argued that "we" are not a collective but a group of individuals morally responsible for our own decisions and morally responsible to consider the lives of others as part of our personal obligation. This view has created an enduring debate between those who see a social role for the state and those who see the state as interfering with personal freedom.
Clearly the jury is still out on which view will prevail.
And one final note, in my research for this column I read that the London audience who saw Billy Elliot on Monday night voted to keep the nasty Maggie Thatcher song in the performance. I am not sure what this says except that there are still many who remember that terrible time in Britain when she defiantly took on those miners and that she won.
