thatcher: there was no alternative

[ed miliband]

a good piece by michael roberts, which i posted in the other thread but i think deserves further attention:

http://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/thatcher-there-was-no-alternative/


The Thatcher period lasted from 1979 to 1990. Much is made of ‘Thatcherism’ as some counter-revolutionary force on behalf of Capital, widely acclaimed by its supporters as saving Britain for capitalism , or turning it around from disaster. But the reality was is that Thatcherism was just one strand of a general sea change in economic strategy forced on Capital by the crisis that major capitalist economies had got into by the end of the 1970s. These economies had experienced a steady and sharp fall in the profitability of capital from the mid-1960s onwards. This was the result of tightening labour markets – no longer supplied with influxes of cheap labour from unemployed after the war or a fast-rising baby boomer working population. And also there was a rising level of investment in technology relative to labour that began to deliver so well on raising the productivity of labour.

[Crixus]

I came to many of the same conclusions (over the years) and if people don't like it I don't care. Falling rate of profit, a western working class with no leverage, the fall of socialist states etc. In the end I prefer a materialist analysis rather than 'Thatcher and Reagan are evil' as I've pointed out in the 'Thatcher is dead thread' the problem is systemic, a problem which transcends public political persona's. If only it were that easy, to 'vote in' a person with the right views. People thought they had that with Obama but what the system demands the system will get.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Dunno if it was the same/similar article or something else you posted, but someone described her as the face of the defiant bourgeoisie in the 1970s, a bourgeoisie that was worried its economic, political and social power was being eroded, and that she was the bastion of its defence.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

Dunno if it was the same/similar article or something else you posted, but someone described her as the face of the defiant bourgeoisie in the 1970s, a bourgeoisie that was worried its economic, political and social power was being eroded, and that she was the bastion of its defence.

This seems to be almost consensus as well, albeit with some modification. The number of articles in mainstream Swedish media and political idiots saying that Thatcher "saved the UK" and "maybe the world" are tremendous, but all are filled by a tacit approval that the British working classes needed to be "put back in their place" after the immediate post-war concessions became difficult to maintain.

[Mather]

Michael Roberts is spot on.

From the 1970s onwards the ruling classes of the industrialised world promoted and implemented many of the policies that were associated with Thatcher in Britain, the US under Reagan being a good example. Given that neoliberalism was a consequence of the systemic problems of capitalism, it would be wrong of us to focus solely on individuals such as Thatcher or Reagan when analysing neoliberalism and late capitalism. The sad fact is that even if Thatcher had never been born, someone else would have simply taken her place, historically speaking.

I also read on another forum that one of Thatcher's advisors admitted that the high rate of unemplyoment under her government was deliberate. That her government wanted to create a reserve army of labour as a way of attacking the pay and conditions of workers. I have heard of this point being made before but to hear one of her advisors admit it is interesting. It certainly adds weight to the argument that in such matters Thatcher was part of a wider process that was systemic in it's nature.

[Hit The North]

There's always an alternative. How can you be a revolutionary and think otherwise?

[ed miliband]

There's always an alternative. How can you be a revolutionary and think otherwise?

there was no alternative within the logic or in the interests of capital. that's the point of the piece.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

there was no alternative within the logic or in the interests of capital. that's the point of the piece.

And if there had been no Thatcher, as a person, there'd been someone else to do the same thing. In Sweden it was the Minister of Finance in the 1980's.

Thatcher isn't a person or an ideological movement; it's simply an unavoidable transformation of capitalism finding itself in the situation it did at the time and space which it did in the post-war era. The response was given, and it had to be executed; someone was going to come along and do it, sooner or later.

[red flag over teeside]

The reason why Thatcher was so effective in driving her policies through was a combination of being prepared to use the violence of the state to smash workers resistance the miners strike and wapping as two examples and knowing that the Labour Party/Trade Union reformists were simply incapable of protecting the working class from such ravages.

The British and USA bourgeosie also knew that if they were going to try to refinace British capitalism then wholesale destruction of the manafacturing base was required to release large quantaties of capital for financial purposes. Again they knew that if they were determined then they would succeed. Of course none of this was guarnteed after all workers were still confident enough but unfortunately not enough workers had developed a clear perspective which went beyond capitalism.

[Popular Front of Judea]

It's easy to look back at the period starting in the mid 70's with teleological hindsight and say the ascension of Reagan and Thatcher was inevitable. To do so would be to overlook such contingent events as the attempted assassination of Reagan and the Argentine occupation/retaking of the Falklands/Malvinas.

I personally have little doubt that there would have been a capitalist restoration. But it is quite possible that the whip hand would have been less sure, more hesitant.

[Arlekino]

I am no idea why Trade Unions lost power or somewhere got wrong. Even now what is wrong with Trade Unions?

[Agathor]

It's easy to look back at the period starting in the mid 70's with teleological hindsight and say the ascension of Reagan and Thatcher was inevitable. To do so would be to overlook such contingent events as the attempted assassination of Reagan and the Argentine occupation/retaking of the Falklands/Malvinas.

I personally have little doubt that there would have been a capitalist restoration. But it is quite possible that the whip hand would have been less sure, more hesitant.

I highly doubt it. Falklands or not, Michael Foot's crumbling Labour Party had no chance of beating Thatcher in '83.

[Klaatu]

I came to many of the same conclusions (over the years) and if people don't like it I don't care. Falling rate of profit, a western working class with no leverage, the fall of socialist states etc. In the end I prefer a materialist analysis rather than 'Thatcher and Reagan are evil' as I've pointed out in the 'Thatcher is dead thread' the problem is systemic, a problem which transcends public political persona's. If only it were that easy, to 'vote in' a person with the right views. People thought they had that with Obama but what the system demands the system will get.
Let us not forget the enormous power of persuasion that the media has upon the (voting!) under-educated, simple-minded portion of the public.

[pastradamus]

The blood of 10 dead Irishmen is on her. A horrible person, rutless and ridiculous in her nature and worse even than Regan in America. Im annoyed that I am an athiest and that there is no hell for her to go to.

Jelly and Icecream.

9DuNUwzC5Y

[Popular Front of Judea]

Quite possibly true, but was there no possibility of opposition to her arising from within the Conservative party -- especially after the '81 riots? Picture early 80's Britain without the patriotic spectacle of the Falkland War.


I highly doubt it. Falklands or not, Michael Foot's crumbling Labour Party had no chance of beating Thatcher in '83.

[Brutus]

The blood of 10 dead Irishmen is on her. A horrible person, rutless and ridiculous in her nature and worse even than Regan in America. Im annoyed that I am an athiest and that there is no hell for her to go to.

Jelly and Icecream.

9DuNUwzC5Y

The PIRA were so close to blowing her to smithereens

[pastradamus]

The PIRA were so close to blowing her to smithereens

Yeah! That stupid fuckin cast-iron bathtub!

[MP5]

Yeah it's a shame they didn't blow her to bits. All of Ireland and Wales and most of Scotland and England would have rejoiced.

The INLA did blow up the incoming secretary of Northern Ireland Airey Neave who was a good friend of Thatchers when a car he was driving out of the palace of Westminster went boom :grin: . Too bad they didn't put another bomb on Thatchers car.

[Beeth]

I am not familiar with this person. How many years was she PM and why did people vote for her if she was that bad?

[Sir Comradical]

Just to play devil's advocate, why did the Scandinavian countries not have to go down the same brutal path? What was different about their RoP? Anyone?

[Hit The North]

Just to play devil's advocate, why did the Scandinavian countries not have to go down the same brutal path? What was different about their RoP? Anyone?

We could add Germany and France to that list.

[ed miliband]

We could add Germany and France to that list.

what are you on about - mitterrand? kohl?

what issue exactly do you have with the article? cos you clearly have one. it's not saying you can't hate thatcher (in fact, the final paragraph is a very succinct description of what made thatcher so hateable), nor is it saying there's "no alternative" to capitalism. what's the problem?

[Hit The North]

what are you on about - mitterrand? kohl?

what issue exactly do you have with the article? cos you clearly have one. it's not saying you can't hate thatcher (in fact, the final paragraph is a very succinct description of what made thatcher so hateable), nor is it saying there's "no alternative" to capitalism. what's the problem?

EB,

My main problem is that I don't really understand the point the author is making.


Originally posted by Michael Roberts (http://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/thatcher-there-was-no-alternative/)
The Thatcher period lasted from 1979 to 1990. Much is made of ‘Thatcherism’ as some counter-revolutionary force on behalf of Capital, widely acclaimed by its supporters as saving Britain for capitalism , or turning it around from disaster. But the reality was is that Thatcherism was just one strand of a general sea change in economic strategy forced on Capital by the crisis that major capitalist economies had got into by the end of the 1970s.No problem with the author's assertion that Thatcher did not begin the strategic retreat from the neo-Keynesianism of welfare state capitalism, but would take issue with her being merely a continuation. The fact is that the historical roots of the Thatcherite clique's critique of n-K goes back at least to the 1950s. This means that rather than a series of panic moves which distinguished Callaghan's retreat as economic catastrophe unfolded, Thatcher's was based on an ideological commitment and, from that point of view, her clique was "counter-revolutionary" in that it represented a conscious critical break with neo-Keynsianism. So, in fact, their approach was not a technocratic response to restructuring capitalism out of the necessity of restoring profitability to a failing mode of accumulation, but an ideologically driven program based on the assumption that a system based on n-K should never have existed in the first place.

These ideological convictions were held by the Reagan camp in the USA but throughout Western Europe the major powers were not embarked upon the same ideological programs or embracing the same class war strategy. France and Germany did not slash and burn the manufacturing base in order to weaken the unions; they did not impose the interests of finance capital over the claims of industrial capital in the way that Thatcher did; they did not pursue a deliberate policy of widening inequalities back to Victorian levels. Nevertheless, France and Germany were major players in the global capitalist economy in the neo-Liberal stage, so it is not true to say that there was no alternative to Thatcherism, even within the logic of steering capitalism out of its crisis and into a new era.

So given that the author argues that there was an alternative to capitalism (i.e. socialism) and also that Thatcherism was merely a strand within more general shifts (presumably Kohl and Mitterrand represent other strands), I don't understand how he can title his piece 'Thatcher - there was no alternative.'

Besides that, I think his analysis is guilty of teleology. Basically he is suggesting that there was no alternative then if we expect to live in the world as it is now.

Or perhaps he is making a narrower argument that there was no alternative to Thatcher for British capital? If so, he should reign in his claims.

Btw, I don't need comrade Roberts or anyone else to give me permission to hate Thatcher - I was a trade unionist and socialist at the time and played my small role in the ranks of her "enemy within".

[ckaihatsu]

These ideological convictions were held by the Reagan camp in the USA but throughout Western Europe the major powers were not embarked upon the same ideological programs or embracing the same class war strategy. France and Germany did not slash and burn the manufacturing base in order to weaken the unions; they did not impose the interests of finance capital over the claims of industrial capital in the way that Thatcher did; they did not pursue a deliberate policy of widening inequalities back to Victorian levels. Nevertheless, France and Germany were major players in the global capitalist economy in the neo-Liberal stage, so it is not true to say that there was no alternative to Thatcherism, even within the logic of steering capitalism out of its crisis and into a new era.


If I recall correctly, Western Europe was still developing in the postwar period, under the shelter of the Marshall Plan.

This means that the France and Germany of the '80s are not economically comparable to the U.S. and Britain of the same time since the latter two were / are more developed, hegemonic, and financialized.

[Hit The North]

Ckaihatsu,

The Marshall Plan was in effect for four years between 1948 and 1952 and Britain pocketed more aid dollars (http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/modern/marshall_01.shtml) under the plan than any other nation in Western Europe, so whatever the differences between the German, French and British economies in the 1970s and 80s, it is unlikely to be a consequence of the Marshall plan.

[ckaihatsu]

Ckaihatsu,

The Marshall Plan was in effect for four years between 1948 and 1952 and Britain pocketed more aid dollars (http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/modern/marshall_01.shtml) under the plan than any other nation in Western Europe, so whatever the differences between the German, French and British economies in the 1970s and 80s, it is unlikely to be a consequence of the Marshall plan.


Okay, thanks, and accepted -- can anyone point me to a comparison of growth rates for the major national economies from the postwar period through the present?

[Raúl Duke]

France and Germany did not slash and burn the manufacturing base in order to weaken the unions; they did not impose the interests of finance capital over the claims of industrial capital in the way that Thatcher did; they did not pursue a deliberate policy of widening inequalities back to Victorian levels. Nevertheless, France and Germany were major players in the global capitalist economy in the neo-Liberal stage, so it is not true to say that there was no alternative to Thatcherism, even within the logic of steering capitalism out of its crisis and into a new era.I think bringing up "why didn't it happen in the 80s in continental Europe, etc" doesn't really detract the point of the piece so much.

Thatcher and Reagen were part of a trend which was brewing, perhaps even earlier, in the intellectual realm. Some countries adopted it earlier then others because of the conditions at the time which allowed it, the US and the UK being one of these. But the trend was still there and today most countries, if not all, in the "first world" (plus even in the third world, in fact it may have ravaged those countries earlier partly economic imperialism and also to be treated as a "social laboratory") have endured the effects of neoliberalism.

Eventually, the time came for both France and Germany to have its neo-liberalist assault or perhaps it came in gradually throughout the years. Even then, not all countries have had the exact treatment.