the rebuttal of a right-wing narrative

[The Grey Blur]

in britain any criticism of thatcher is inevitably met with the right-wing argument that, with certain variations, goes like this:


You cannot understand Thatcher without understanding the 1970s. I was also only just born when she was leaving power but it does not take much effort read around the history of the period to understand the world that Thatcher was elected into. The 1970s saw the Winter of Discontent, skyhigh inflation, Britain's economy eclipsed by the Japanese, Germans, French and Italians. The unions were rampant, the dockers would go on strike because the steelworkers had an argument with their management. Britain was not some happy clappy place in the seventies. could anyone offer a marxist rebuttal of these arguments, placing them in historical context? (edit: i left in some points which are obviously ridiculous but i'd be interested to see what posters have to say about those too)i'm northern irish not british therefore my knowledge of recent british history is sketchy. i can already see that this narrative is gaining a new weight as thatcher nears death and her legacy continues in the form of the current neo-liberal coalition.

[Lacrimi de Chiciură]

Capitalism's post-World War II prosperity was just beginning to decline in the 1970s, which is part of the reason why there was so much social and political turmoil during the 60s/70s. Also, the 1950s-1970s saw the greatest wave of decolonization of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. People were starting to radicalize, so the Neoliberals (Reagan and Thatcher) fought back and gave new life to capitalism by waging class war against the working class, attacking labor unions and in Regan's case (I'm sure Thatcher had something similar) using cointelpro to prevent any activists from getting too powerful, funneling drugs into impoverished communities and then declaring a "war on Drugs", engaging in neo-colonialism (in Palestine, South Africa, Las Malvinas, Nicaragua, El Salvador, etc. etc.) which opened up "new markets" and paved the way for the type of "free trade" we have today, and they also relied on Cold War hysteria to keep themselves in power.