How libertarian was Great Britain under Margaret Thatcher? I realize mises.org or LRC do not have any documentation on it unlike Rothbard’s article that exploded the belief of Reagan being small government. I think a documentary in youtube “Andrew Marr’s History of Modern Britain” mentioned the governmne grew 12% under Thatcher but it was for the military, everything else was cut. I somehow can’t make sense of this since government growth means taxation and spending yet Thatcherism seemed to work pretty well. Can anybody explain what really happened in GB under Margaret Thatcher?
I believe Ms Thatcher’s actions in fighting back the collectivists in the form of unions as well as her statements like “There is no such thing as society” were massive ideological victories for the cause of freedom. Apart from knowing that she generally benefited the business community, I don’t have specific data about her time.
the vast majority of Englishmen that I interact with are Scousers and they all seem to DESPISE Thatcher and seem to think that libertarian ideas are too closely related an that it was terrible times then, and would be terrible if government got out of the way now.
I’d say the topic is a largely fruitless one, unless your opponent pulls the unlikely move of using British history in a foreign emperical argument. Trying to get people of a liberal bent in Britain is like trying to convert people to Norse paganism in Mecca.
Margaret Thatcher’s Poll Tax - MNR
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Riots in the streets; protest against a hated government; cops arresting protesters. A familiar story these days. But suddenly we find that the protests are directed, not against a hated Communist tyranny in Eastern Europe, but against Mrs. Thatcher’s regime in Britain, a supposed paragon of liberty and the free market. What’s going on here? Are anti-government demonstrators heroic freedom-fighters in Eastern Europe, but only crazed anarchists and alienated punks in the West?
The anti-government riots in London at the end of March were, it must be noted, anti-tax riots, and surely a movement in opposition to taxation can’t be all bad. But wasn’t the protest movement at bottom an envy-ridden call for soaking the rich, and hostility to the new Thatcher tax a protest against its abstention from egalitarian leveling?
Not really.
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The short answer: same as Reagan.
She defended the Falklands, so can’t be that bad.
You know, I almost regret that Juan was banned. I would have loved to have seen his reaction, as an Argentine, to talk of that.
Back on topic: From what I have heard, Thatcher was “pro-freedom” in the sense that her opponents were even worse. She wouldn’t rank on my list of liberal figures, more likely ones of 19th century style conservatives with mercantile and nationalist elements.
She’s Deng Xiaoping compared to the Brown regime, though.
What the hell was that? Instead of arguing that the riot should really be directed at the local governments, and that a poll tax will force them to collect much less in taxes to avoid similar occurrences, Rothbard distains the systems as “inviting tax evasion”?! When did he begin to work for the British government?
It seems to me that this particular piece of legislation was Thatcher’s greatest achievement (not counting pulling off a tactically nearly impossible military action half the world away where not one civilian was harmed). Every move towards more decentralization (as this) is to be heeded as libertarian.
More generally, form what I know Thatcher was certainly no libertarian, but still far better that Reagan and ages apart other British governments, before or since. The fact that she was ousted only when it became clear to the higher echelons that it had been Gorbachev’s liberal reforms that brought down the USSR (drawing a line with socialist UK form there is not difficult) should give us pause for thought.
But of course, it still was a State after all, so let us not pretend to much.
Rothbard raged pretty heavily against her:
Mrs. Margaret Thatcher came in roaring to the Prime Ministry of Great Britain in May 1979 with the promise of free markets, denationalization, and an end to deficits and monetary inflation. The denationalization has been virtually nil. Deficits continue very heavy; money and price inflation continue at double-digit levels. The only result of Thatcherism has been to stifle economic growth and to bring about a seemingly permanent recession with very high unemployment. In short, Thatcherism has brought about the worst of all macro-economic worlds. Inflation continues high and rampant, along with very high unemployment levels and chronic stagnation. Moreover, the slight fall in income tax rates was immediately more-than compensated by an even greater increase in the VAT (essentially sales) tax. In this way, slight gains for upper income groups were more than offset by increased burdens on the poor and the middle class. If leftists were asked to describe a right-wing Bogey Man, they couldn’t have done better, and with more disastrous results for the cause of economic freedom.
What the hell was what? [8-)]
Yeah, I think you’ve some how missed the point.
What the hell was that?
OP:
“Thatcherism is all too similar to Reaganism: free-market rhetoric masking statist content. While Thatcher has engaged in some privatization, the percentage of government spending and taxation to GNP has increased over the course of her regime, and monetary inflation has now led to price inflation. Basic discontent, then, has risen, and the increase in local tax levels has come as the vital last straw. It seems to me that a minimum criterion for a regime receiving the accolade of “pro-free-market” would require it to cut total spending, cut overall tax rates, and revenues, and put a stop to its own inflationary creation of money. Even by this surely modest yardstick, no British or American administration in decades has come close to qualifying.”
Granted, and that was precisely what I said: that no government before or since, in the States or the has done any better, although I wouldn’t have voted for Thatcher on that account of course. My own Prime Minister is much more liberal that her.
Regarding the Rothbard article, what staggered me was that Rothbard was attacking poll taxes because they “fostered discontent” and “invited resistance and evasion”, even though he makes it clear that poll taxes are preferable to property taxes. Or did I get his idea there wrong?
And than, look at the bright side: she did inspire V for Vendetta.
Where did Rothbard say “fostered discontent”? I’m probably blind, lol - but I don’t see it. If he didn’t say that, then it probably shouldn’t be put it in quotes.
Where did Rothbard say "invited resistance and evasion”?
What I believe you are referring to:
"But there are several deep flaws in the new tax. In the first place, it is still not neutral to the market, since–a crucial difference–market prices are paid voluntarily by the consumer purchasing the good or service, whereas the tax (or “charge”) is levied coercively on each person, even if the value of the “service” of government to that person is far less than the charge, or is even negative.
Not only that: but a poll tax is a charge levied on a person’s very existence, and the person must often be hunted down at great expense to be forced to pay the tax. Charging a man for his very existence seems to imply that the government owns all of its subjects, body and soul.
The second deep flaw is bound up with the problem of coercion. It is certainly heroic of Mrs. Thatcher to want to scrap the property tax in behalf of an equal tax. But she seems to have missed the major point of the equal tax, one that gives it its unique charm. For the truly great thing about an equal tax is that in order to make it payable, it has to be drastically reduced from the levels before the equality is imposed.
Assume, for example, that our present federal tax was suddenly shifted to become an equal tax for each person. This would mean that the average person, and particularly the low-income person, would suddenly find himself paying enormously more per year in taxes–about $5,000. So that the great charm of equal taxation is that it would necessarily force the government to lower drastically its levels of taxing and spending. Thus, if the U.S. government instituted, say, a universal and equal tax of $10 per year, confining it to the magnificent sum of $2 billion annually, we would all live quite well with the new tax, and no egalitarian would bother about protesting its failure to soak the rich.
But instead of drastically lowering the amount of local taxation, Mrs. Thatcher imposed no such limits, and left the total expenditure and tax levels, as before, to the local councils. These local councils, Conservative as well as Labour, proceeded to raise their tax levels substantially, so that the average British citizen is being forced to pay approximately one-third more in local taxes. No wonder there are riots in the streets! The only puzzle is that the riots aren’t more severe."
I’m sorry, I still don’t understand what you consider he said was a problem.
My mistake, note taken.
Well, if this reform is to be attacked on this ground, this can only mean that the situation after the reform is to be found wanting in this regard as compared with the situation preceding the reform, i.e. that property taxes are more neutral, while the new poll taxes are less so . I doubt this would make any sense. Attacking a reform because it doesn’t achieve everything is like attacking under anarchy for not being the richest country in the world: you compare the effects of the change with the situation that prevailed before it, or better still with the situation that would have prevailed had no such change taken place. On this account, I find this criticism unfounded. (not to say that this would have been the best reform possible, only to mean that it was a good reform)
So much the better than! Rothbard himself was a great advocate of loopholes in taxes. How about this change of mind then?
Just like a property tax implies not only ownership of all private property by the government, but worse still, ownership of the labor of a man by the government, since when my labor increases the value of my property, as it is fit, some part must go to the government. The poll tax, on the other hand, does indeed imply public ownership of the guys’ existence, but in a “original sin” fashion, that is asking a set price for “his existence”, and relinquishing any claim to the labor and toil, be it manual or mental, of man. It is easy to what repercussions for incentives to work does this have, as compared to the property tax.
So, Rothabrd is criticizing the movement away from a tax type that makes the tax easy to collect taxes in whatever amounts the local authority believes to be necessary (houses are indeed hard to hide), and towards a type that makes it very difficult to increase taxes! What happened here?
What I believe Rothbard wanted to say with this, is that poll taxes as instituted by Thatcher where too big, and indeed so much that the average guy had to pay a third more in taxes. That is indeed unwanted, but let us thing about what “average” implies here.
Under a property tax regime, the majority of people could just calculate the lower value of property held by the upper median individuals, and decide that form that point on, tax rates would be of 10%,whilst everyone else pays nothing. So A, owning a restaurant, could pay 20’000 pounds annually, while B, owning not even his condo would pay nothing. It is easy to se the incentive here.
While with poll taxes, both A and B pay 10’000 (assuming a fiscally neutral reform). It is indeed deplorable that now B is forced to pay taxes, but we must see that the incentive is now present to lower taxes, since even the majority has to pay the same amount. In our case, poll taxes where initially high only because, to be made fiscally neutral, the reform demanded such levels. But instead of pounding the LGs which had brought property taxes to such a high level sat to require high poll taxes, Rothbard pounds Thatcher for instituting the incentive to lower taxes to the outmost! WTF?
The way I see it, Rothbard should have said: “ It is unfortunate that now the average tax payer will pay 30% more taxes, but this state of affairs only follows from the unabated lust for money of the locally elected communes. Thus, the average voter is well served by the reform for his socialist creed (did they want big government? Here they have it!), and the rioters should rather be protesting in their towns and villages, and not against Misses Thatcher’s government. It is indeed laudable that a democratically elected party finds it in itself to oppose the masses, instituting massively unpopular (and misunderstood!) reforms to further lower the size of government. If Misses Thatcher’s government shows the steel nerve it is often credited with, and resist the rioters, it is indeed worthy of being mentioned along with the most liberal British governments of any time. Hold on Maggie! After all, “the lady is not for turning!”
Didn’t he just denounce legal limit son expenditures in the other article linked here? Now he asks for such legal restrictions (not to mention the breach of autonomy of LG, which is always to be preferred to the central government)? No, I go with the old Rothbard, the one who saw that the only real check on taxation is popular will. And as this reform made it very unpopular to raise taxes, and indeed to keep the to current level of taxes! Here Rothbard has the greatest limit possible.
“Are anti-government demonstrators heroic freedom-fighters in Eastern Europe, but only crazed anarchists and alienated punks in the West?”
Fun fact: During the early 80’s the second (or third) wave of punk was growing in Britain (known as UK82). One of the major labels at that time was called Riot City records, and was named so due to all the riots the town was having. At the same time anarcho-punk was starting, and that genre of bands were involved with anti-Thatcher protest and demonstrations.
Britain under Thatcher wasn’t Libertarian.
I wrote a small ad hoc piece on my blog about the the decline of Britain politically including Prime Minister’s(since I’m from the UK and I feel it hasn’t been covered) and I wrote a small piece about here.
Here it is:-
Margaret Thatcher 1979- 1990 .She wasn’t capitalist or laissez Faire .She was a Monetarist.She was loved By Milton Friedman(that says it all doesn’t it?)She did limit public spending though and allow council tenants to buy their homes which is admirable(right to buy).She Sickly Approved of Nuclear Weapons ,Championed Environmentalism and introduced more robbery with the Poll Tax.She brought in The Education Reform Act of 1988.She reversed support for a devolved Scotland.Legally restricted unions.Lowered direct taxes and increased indirect taxes.Led UK into falklands war.Took to Gorbachev warmly.Provided Military forces for Gulf War.Rothbard said she was essentially the UK’s Reagan.
Thatcherism was a failure. Thatcher just shifted were the taxation hit .It was much stealthier taxation I think.
Alot of British people are this way.Alot of people I’ve meet or interacted with hate any idea of Laissez Faire since they think that’s what Thatcher believed in-much like the common image of Ronald Reagan.Many people actually hate Libertarianism or Capitalism and favour leftism because of her especially in Scotland where alot of people depended on mining(like near my home town)
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The Falklands though not the worst war ever is still a government war and as such is unjust.Also it was hardly an issue of national defence.
If anything Thatcher showed the impossibility of anything “right wing” being accepted by the general media, academia, art type crowds. Anti government / authority protesting is only good if it is against “the right” or if “the left” isn’t being “left wing” enough. Margret Thatcher, I think, epitomizes this mentality and the victory of “the left” in terms of control of education, mindset, and media more clearly than anyone else.
I agree.
Three were, I think.