What Is Thatcherism Did It Succeed Essay

What Is Thatcherism. Did It Succeed. Essay, Research Paper

In

1979 Margaret Thatcher took over from James Callaghan as Prime Minister. On

being appointed she appealled, in the words of Francis of Assisi for help in

bringing harmony when there is discord. For the next eleven years Margaret

Thatcher was Prime Minister winning an incredible three general elections.

During this time, though, her style was anything but harmonious. This style

and the policies that came to be associated with them came to be known as

Thatcherism.

There are several identifiable aspects of Thatcherism which helped her and

her government stay in power for so long and improve the United Kingdom so

immeasurably.

Throughout the 1970s Britain had been subjected to a series of damaging

strikes and terrific inflation. The Tories 1979 manifesto pledged to

encourage private enterprise, lower taxes and restore power to the

individual. What Thatcherism was promising at the end of the Seventies was

the formula for renewed economic success in Britain through reinvigoration of

the supply side of the economy.

The high inflation crisis in Britain’s economy was gradually defeated under

the Thatcher government. In 1978, domestic production in the U.K. only grew

by 1% while consumer spending went up by 5%.An unacceptably high level of

inflation resulted. In the early years, the Thatcher government committed

itself to gradual reductions in the money supply and increases in various

taxes to quell inflation. These policies were monetarist. Monetarism was a

policy Thatcher believed in which distinguishes her from previous

governments. The Tories soon earned the reputation as honest and effective

inflation-fighters. As the British economy was recovering from recession in

1983, inflation fell form 20% to 4%, the lowest level in 13 years- largely as

a result of these monetarist policies.

During its years in power, the Thatcher government managed to weaken the

stranglehold labour unions held over industry and government in Britain.

Thatcher saw this as a very important part of her plans for the country.

Unions had contributed towards, or been responsible for, the downfall of

three successive governments. In 1980, 82, 84 and 88 legislation was

introduced affecting the Unions. Unions in Britain had priced many of their

members out of jobs by demanding excessive wages for insufficient output.

This had the effect of making British goods incompetitive. At first, unions

were able to hold down the Tories as they had done with previous governments.

But the government gradually piled pressure onto the unions until one of them

snapped. In 1984 the most powerful and most militant union went on strike. It

was the miners union led by a Marxist, Arthur Scargill. Thatcher had

ingeniously predicted and prepared for the strike; by stockpiling coal at power

stations the effects of the strike on the economy were minimalised. The

government had passed legislation to make striking more difficult with a

compulsory secret ballot and less effective with flying pickets being banned.

The Tories won the coal strike hands-down, and this win signalled that the

era of union supremacy in the governing of Britain came to an end. In

addition, at about the same time as the miners’ strikes, the Tories won

battles with staff at the Government Communications Headquarters. The

leashing of unions began to produce prominent signs of economic efficiency:

From 1973-9, general economic productivity amounted to 1% or so p.a. Since

then productivity has doubled, and in the manufacturing sector it has

quadrupled, due, in part to declining union clout. However, Thatcherism has

not done a thoroughly clean job in the area of unions. School teachers never

had been won over by the Tories and were threatening to strike in 1994. Also

high levels of unemployment assisted the Thatcher Tories in decreasing the

unions’ propensity to hold strikes. Thatcherism ushered in a new era of

government-industrial relations where more economic power was given to the

British people and workers, and less to the labour union elite. Heralding the

end of the tripartite coalition that had run the country since the war.

As mentioned above Thatcher believed very strongly in the freedom of the

individual and the removal of the state from the market system. So her

government started a series of massive privatisations in 1981 with British

Telecom. Thatcher also saw this as a way of stopping the inevitable conflict

of interests between owners and workers. Workers in the companies were

offered cut – price shares to encourage them to own part of the business.

This removed the need for trade unions (although most employees simply cashed

in on their shares).

Thatcher encouraged ordinary people not only to own the companies they worked

for but also to ow

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