Dispelling the Thatcher myths

[AConfusedSocialDemocrat]

You guys might be interested in this, scroll down for the sources:

http://www.redpepper.org.uk/dispelling-the-thatcher-myths/

[TheEmancipator]

The thing that baffles me the most about Thatcher is that even from a right-wing nut perspective she is very, very overrated. She did not have any major influence in terms of substance, and in terms of style she just divided the country as we can see now.

[Crixus]

From the article


"Tony Blair and Gordon Brown did more to institutionalise Thatcherism than the woman herself"......."Thatcher tore at the social fabric of Britain, destroyed swathes of its economy and inflicted vindictive harm on large sections of its population. But she built nothing. Her main success was in the minds of her opponents. Capital demanded an attack on labor after organized industry began to flee the west and as a service economy took hold. She was the public face of it. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown weren't hypnotized or fooled or bamboozled into doing more to implement "Thatcherism" than Thatcher herself- it was what the system (large capitalists) demanded. With the coming fall of Socialist states (which the capitalists saw coming) and with western workers having no leverage capital got brazen. With western workers diminished leverage due to globalization the capitalists went for the throat in the 1980's. "Thatcherism" isn't an ideology like Hitler's NAZI vision it was simply capital being honest about it's motivations.

If Thatcher or Reagan were never born the same scenario's would have played out. The material base had been lain by the historical flow of the capitalist system itself. It's not because of Thatcher and Reagan's time of publicly perceived power that we see so called labor advocates attacking labor this is how the system works when workers have no leverage and when capital gets a huge injection of confidence or fear or complacency. This is how the system works. This will all change as this current crisis deepens and or as the next crisis worsens while global labor begins to gain more leverage and eat away at profits via struggle for better conditions. Capital will one day run out of places to create cheap labor forces and it will run out of ways to both profit AND attack labor. It's a ticking time bomb.

Right now China is doing more harm to labor than Thatcher ever did. Places like China, Mexico etc give capitalists safe havens and access to cheap labor. In turn this eats away at leverage workers in Britain and the US might have once had. No leverage = less pay, less pay = less consumption. Less consumption= declining profits. It's part of why Marx said capitalism was doomed. That it would dig it's own grave. Everything they do (politicians/the public face of capital) is done to prevent this. Everything they do is done to keep the market (profits) expanding. This can only now be done via a cycle of attacking labor, printing money, creating massive lines of credit and debt. It doesn't matter who's in office. It doesn't matter what their public rhetoric is. The capitalist system will demand what it needs to survive.

[RadioRaheem84]

It's the same how Clinton did more for neo liberalism than Reagan. What he didn't cut he left alone. Clinton and Blair "reformed" what wasn't cut and it programs worse. The third way technocrats were and still are obsessed with making government fit market efficiency.

[Crixus]

It's the same how Clinton did more for neo liberalism than Reagan. What he didn't cut he left alone. Clinton and Blair "reformed" what wasn't cut and it programs worse. The third way technocrats were and still are obsessed with making government fit market efficiency.

And it's why now Obama is going after social security, medicare and medicaid.

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/04/08/pers-a08.html

Something a Reagan administration could have only dreamed of and while Obama is attacking the elderly, poor, very young and average working class his administration is green lighting drone attacks all over the globe and is overseeing two full on massive scale invasions/occupations/wars, far worse than anything Thatcher did. Obama also gave umpteen trillions of dollars to large capitalists and we're going to end up paying for it but if he died from a heart attack tonight there wouldn't be threads on this site celebrating his death because, even if as is the case with most communists, we don't like his administrations policies we still see 'conservatives' as some sort of great satan far worse than liberals. By seeing the world through that filter we're simply helping them do what they're doing to further confuse massive amounts of people into supporting them.

If anything I have more disdain for what capitalists have done under the Obama admin than the Reagan or either of the Bush administrations. It's masterful machiavellianism. They have it down to an artwork. Crowd psychology, propaganda, media control etc. I have disdain for what they're doing but also a great respect for their ability to both fool and control people. When we have capital blatantly pulling the strings as is the case with the Obama's admin (every administration), when we see this happening all the while their man in office is labeled a socialist...this....this masterful mindfuckery is genius. It has one goal, to push (economically) more to the right in so ensuring profit expansion at the expense of workers and the almost complete nullification of any momentum the left had going during the 8 year Bush admin.

How any independent thinker can support Democrats after the Obama administration is beyond me but they will, en mass. This whole charade will go on as the band played while the Titanic sunk.

[Comrade #138672]

Some claims by Conservatives:


80% rise in social spending under Thatcher. 17.5% increase in public spending during her time.

Ten myths about Margaret Thatcher exploded (http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jeremywarner/100024006/ten-myths-about-margaret-thatcher-exploded/)
The public finances under Margaret Thatcher and under the Coalition — compared (http://conservativehome.blogs.com/thetorydiary/2012/10/the-public-finances-under-margaret-thatcher-and-under-the-coalition-compared.html)

What do you think?