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January 25, 2016|Charles Moore, London, Margaret Thatcher, Privatization, tax rates, unions

Margaret Thatcher, Heroine of Classical Liberalism

by John O. McGinnis|7 Comments

When I went to Oxford in 1978, I had looked forward to spending many weekends in London, one of the great metropolises in all of history. But after an initial visit, I rarely returned. Outside of a few well-known precincts it was a shabby city. But even worse than its appearance was the general sense of lassitude, even paralysis. For instance, it was hard to find places to sell you the simplest groceries outside of very strict business hours. And I was always worried about getting back to Oxford. Industrial action in the form of railway and tube strikes could occur at any time. The economic and spiritual climate of the country was as dismal as its fall and winter weather.

But now London is again one of the great cities of the world, vibrant, innovative and resplendent. One woman is responsible for the transformation of the city and the nation of which it is the capital. That is why it is such a wonderful event to have a superb new biography of her glory years by Charles Moore: Margaret Thatcher at Her Zenith: In London, Washington and Moscow. The book shows why she is one of the rare leaders who transfigured her nation for decades, if not centuries to come. The comparison is less to other British Prime Ministers, but to other transformative world leaders, like Peter the Great or Ataturk. And what separates Thatcher from those leaders is not only her sex, but her democratic methods. She was able to accomplish her goals while persuading fickle and shifting popular opinion.

In this volume Moore details the manner in which Thatcher replaced the state with the market in occupying the commanding heights of the economy.Moore rightly sees that her program of reform had three crucial parts. The first was to break the power of the largest unions, like that of the coal miners, that could through industrial action bring down a democratically elected government. The second was to privatize industry to attract more investment and get the government out of the business of placating constituents by inefficient business practices. The third was to lower tax rates to encourage initiative.

Thatcher faced enormous resistance to these changes from all sides. Some of it was deeply antidemocratic. The book reveals that the mine workers’ union led by its Stalin admiring president, Arthur Scargill, were actually getting funded by the Soviet Union. But the chattering class relentlessly attacked her as well, motivated in part by a kind of class hatred: to them she was just a suburban Philistine. In reality, in all of British history she was the prime minister with the most coherent intellectual vision.  But most intellectuals can be defined as the people least able to appreciate ideas that are not their own.

The most difficult opposition, however, came from her cabinet, few of whom were fully on board. She had the indomitable spirit, however, to quell the adversaries within. Here being a woman was a help, not a hindrance. She recognized as she put it, that in this world, “if a woman undertakes a battle, she has to win.” And she used every feminine asset—charm, stubbornness, and even flirtatiousness, to assure victory.  A Prime Minister has been described a first among equals, but there is no doubt that no man in her cabinet (and they were all men) even came close to her.

Moore’s book is no hagiography. In my next post, I will describe how Moore shows that even at her height, she was creating the conditions for her precipitous fall from power.

John O. McGinnis

John O. McGinnis is the George C. Dix Professor in Constitutional Law at Northwestern University. His book Accelerating Democracy was published by Princeton University Press in 2012. McGinnis is also the coauthor with Mike Rappaport of Originalism and the Good Constitution published by Harvard University Press in 2013 . He is a graduate of Harvard College, Balliol College, Oxford, and Harvard Law School. He has published in leading law reviews, including the Harvard, Chicago, and Stanford Law Reviews and the Yale Law Journal, and in journals of opinion, including National Affairs and National Review.

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Comments

  1. gabe says

    January 25, 2016 at 1:04 pm

    ” to them she was just a suburban Philistine.”

    Why shucks, I didn’t know she was from Kansas – what was WRONG with her, right?

    And what do we produce on this side of the Atlantic in the way of female leaders:

    A Fat Lady in a Pantsuit; a woman who can see across a vast stretch of the Bering Strait; a nincompoop from Baghdad on the Bay; and a self identifying Fauxcohantas!!

    Let’s chalk this one up for the Brits!!!!

    Reply
  2. Roy says

    January 26, 2016 at 9:47 am

    Thatcher was a friend and protector of Jimmy Savile.

    Reply
    • Richard says

      June 23, 2017 at 11:22 am

      @Roy:

      If that is true, then her friendship presumably was bolstered because she thought his work for charity was a good thing. What public leader would NOT wish to look kindly on such a person, as many, many others did. Indeed a whole nation liked him!

      Why point this out? Do you just wish is taint her reputation (merely by association), whilst you know things she can not have known, at the time? An ignorance again true of almost everyone (except his victims and few others). It can’t think of why else you would post this. Shame on you, if so.

      Reply

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