Was 'Thatcherism' anything more than traditional Conservatism adapted to the conditions of the 1980s?

democracy and free-market capitalism. Von Hayeks influence spread far and wide. Mrs Thatcher was an

outspoken devotee of his writings which too many is surprising Mrs Thatcher is the most recgonisable

conservative leader since the war years and Chruchill yet she was influenced by the writings of a man who

titled an essay “Why I am not a conservative” in which he disparaged conservatism for its inability to adapt

to changing human realities or to offer a positive political program. His criticism was aimed primarily at

the European-style conservatism, which has often opposed capitalism as a threat to social stability and

traditional values. Another of Thatcherism’s influences is that of the U.S economist Milton Friendman

known primarily for his advocacy towards laiseez-faire capitalism. Friedman was a contreversial character

in that he had interests in Cuban politics and met with Fidel Castro. Friedman is widely regarded as the

leading proponent of the monetarist school of economic thought in a similar vein to Von Hayek. He

maintains that there is a close and stable link between inflation and the money supply which should be

controlled by placing checks on the amount of money poured into the national economy from in the case of

the United States of America the federal reserve. Friedman adamantly rejects the use of fiscal policy as a

tool of demand management, and he holds the same view as Von Hayek in that the government's role in the

guidance of the economy should be severely restricted. It is from the economic views from these two Nobel

prize winners that we can begin to see where the economic views of Thatcherism were born from.

To conclude on whether there are any significant differences between Thatcherism and traditional

conservatism I need to take a closer look at the latter. Conservatism was born out of resistance to pressures

of liberalism, socialism and nationalism. Conservatism stands in defense of what is thought as a

increasingly embattled traditional social order. Traditional conservatism central theme is ‘the desire to

conserve’ which is closely linked to the ideas of tradition and respect for established customs, the

accumulated wisdom of the past is deemed something that should be respected. Conservatives are widely

pragmatic in their attitudes towards human nature and also pessimistic to match with a view on human

imprefection, that humans are limited , dependant and security seeking. Fitting with the ideas of tradition

there is also a belief in hierarchy; gradations of social position and status are natural and inevitable in an

organic society, these range from family, authority, employment and teachers. This view is something that

also fits with idea of endearing to authority, the authority that comes from above and helps with leadership

the idea of guidance and support given to those who need it. These are ideas that by many are and were

considered old fashioned but they are exactly what they say they are; views that are conservative. The

conservative views that were undertaken by Mrs Thatchers predecessors were that of the idea of ‘One

Nation’. This embodies a disposition towards social reform and a pragmatic attitude towards economic

policy. This is seen clearly in the middle way politics adopted by the conservatives in the 1950s such as

Harold Macmillan. This approach merged two models of economic thought; laissez-faire capitalism and

state socialism and central planning. Neither were seen to work on their own so a blend of the two resulting

in market competition and government regulation “private enterprise without selfishness” was the way that

Harold Macmillan put it.

Mrs Thatcher and what she stood for was also known as the New Right. This represented a departure in

conservative thought that amounted to a kind of counter-revolution against both the post – 1945 drift

towards state intervention and the spread of liberal or progressive social values. The ideas of the new right

can be traced back to the 1970s and the apparent failure of kenysian social democracy, as already

mentioned views that were followed by Harold Macmillan signalled by the end of the post-war boom. It

was these ideas that were articulated in the United States of America and the United Kingdom from the

1980s in the forms of thatcherism and reaganism. This was marked by a distinct shift from state to market

forms of organisation. The New Right rather than having its own obvious philosophical system or ideology

it is more a fusion of two distinct traditions in neoconservatism and neoliberalism. Although it would seem

that the two don’t marry well without ideological tension but they can be support the idea of a strong but

minimal state. Andrew Gamble describes it as ‘the free economy and the strong state” 

Neoliberalism considered by many an updated version of classical political economy that was first

developed by the free market economists such as Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman and philosophers

such as Robert Nozick. The central idea of neoliberalism is the belief that unregulated market capitalism

will deliver efficiency, growth and widespread prosperity.This neoliberal view is reflected in the new rights

concern with the politics of ownership and its preference for private ownership over state ownership or

nationalization in short the idea of “private:good, public:bad” is one followed by Thatcherites. This rugged

individualism was expressed in Margaret Thatchers famous quote that “there is no such thing as society,

only individuals and their families” Neoliberals believe that the ‘nanny state’ that was considered to of

been in place to an extent before the election of the conservatives and Margaret Thatcher in 1979 breeds a

culture of dependance and undermines freedom of choice especially in the market place.

The New Rights views are also seen to of come from that of the ‘neoconservatives’. Neoconservatism

reasserts the 19th century conservative social principles, the conservative new right wishes above all other

issues to restore authority and return to traditional values especially those linked to the family, religion and

the idea of the nation. Neoconservatives believe authority guarantees social stability and that this should

come from the top. The enemies of the neoconservatives in that case is the idea of ‘doing one’s own

thing’. This is the idea of people rebelled against the state, not neccesarily through crime but through

thoughts and beliefts. It can be said that many of the conservatives in the USA are former Liberals who

rebelled against the progressive reforms made by the administrations in the 60s in dealing with a growing

hippy culture. Another aspect of neoconservatism is the tendancy to view multicultural and multireligious

societies pessimistically on the basis that they are conflict-ridden and unstable. This is where the links to

insular forms of nationalism orginate from which also shows scepticism towards these societies.

So what were the fundamental differences between the new right and thatcherism and the views of

traditional conservatism? Were these ideological differences or adaptations on one from the other in the

political climate. Having analysed both of these I shall now go on to compare the two so I can draw a

conclusion.

Traditional conservatism as mentioned is an ideology based on tradition, one of respect to authority,

endearing to a hierarchical system of status and one of independence from government. It is just from this

brief outline of some of the elements of conservatism that we can see similarities between the new and the

old right. Though this has to be expected Mrs Thatcher was after all a Conservative Prime Minister. The

New Right was born from the ideas of neoliberalism and neoconservatism. We can see when look at these

two that they both have similarities in the pillars that they stand on with that of traditional conservatism.

Neoliberalism is the side of the new right that primarily Mrs Thatchers economic views are from.

Neoliberalism addresses the idea of ‘rolling back the state’ with encouragement of private enterprise and

ownership. Denationalization is an example of this with the selling off of most of the large utilities that had

become public owned during the post-war nationalization programme. It was deemed that over the long

term , nationalization and inefficient state-owned monopolies hindered entrepreneurial spirit and fair

competition. This view and action of the new right can be immediately compared with that of the view of

the traditional conservative ideology when dealing with the idea of property. Traditional conservatives see

ownership as being important in giving people security and a degree of independence from the government

of the day, it is also considered to influence human nature in a way that people will have respect for the

property of others. Though the context of the two points is separate we can draw from this simlarities in the

economic views of the new right and the social views of the traditional conservative.

Neoconservative views are obviously born out of their traditional conservative fore fathers. The

comparisons are obviously there to be made when looking at the social principles of the two. As already

mentioned the conservative new right wants above all to restore authority and return to traditional moral

values. This is a mirror image of the views held by the traditional conservatives. The conservative view of

authority and respect make this easy to draw obvious similarities between the two.

These obvious similarities in the building blocks of the new right and that of the traditional conservatives

lead us to ask the question on why there was a move from traditional conservatism to one with an economic

liberal colouring.

What had gone before the election of Margaret Thatcher was just as important in the shaping of her views as the writings of liberal Von Hayek and Milton Friedman. The idea that this great country could be spoken

of as a ‘sick man’ or the ‘british disease’ is something that we cannot relate but it was very real at the

beginning of the 1980s. In place was a very expensive welfare system, overly powerful trade unions that

had an uncommon and often crippling power over the government, a large public sector that was not

moving forward and a declining position in world trade which was blazingly obvious when comparing the

percentage of world exports in 1950 in comparison to 1977. The “winter of discontent” has just passed and

it was obvious in the eyes of the new governing conservative party and the people that had elected them

that something needed to change. Soft Policies had been adopted by post-war governments and Mrs

Thatcher had made the decision that she was going to be the person that made that change. The New Prime

Minister bought with her the end of consensus politics and “believed she had identified the critical

elements of the ‘British disease’, and set out to give Britain the hard medicine that she believed must be

applied if the postwar decline was to be reversed”. Mrs Thatcher immediately introduced the theories of

Milton Friedman into the economy which indluced control on government spending, reduction of the

governmental role in the marketplace, low taxation and a free market. These were introduced though in

reaction to what had not worked in the past, it was reactionary politics in that he saw what was not working

and put in place what could be deemed as the opposite policies.

Thatcherism is built on the ideas of traditional conservatism, the leader of the new right Mrs Margaret Thatcher had the vision to realise that social democracy was not going to reverse the downfall of Britain economically, she also realised that the conservatism that had stood for years was also not going to be sufficient. With the ability to take the ideology that her party supports and move it on the political specturm with the additions of neo conservative and liberal thought to the idealogy Mrs Thatcher showed great foresight. I believe though that it was the succesful use of hindsight that Mrs Thatcher used so succesfully. Britain was failing, and had been realistically since the war when in comparison to other western european economies. The policies that had been put in place were the reasons for this, Mrs Thatcher took the conservatism and changed it so that

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