How much have Thatcher/Reagan contributed to the state of the world today?

[WestGorton]

When you say Europe, I presume you mean Western (i.e. non-Warsaw Pact) Europe.

Yes. That is what I mean. EU. That big powerful gang we are no longer in.

 

[gordondaviesmoustache]

Yes. That is what I mean. EU. That big powerful gang we are no longer in.

Thought so. Still an interesting stat, nonetheless.

As you hinted, not a panacea, but neither is the current disparity in wealth, that’s for sure.

 

[WestGorton]

Thought so. Still an interesting stat, nonetheless.

As you hinted, not a panacea, but neither is the current disparity in wealth, that’s for sure.

Agreed

 

[TinFoilHat]

Thatcher was one of our greatest prime ministers.

Had vision, backbone and clarity of thought. She reinvigorated the country’s entrepreneurial spirit, freed the economy from its 1970s stupor and boosted social mobility in turn. How we could do with her now.

Example A M'Lud.

A selfish ****.

 

[yankblue]

Both before my time so take what I'm saying with a grain of salt.

But income inequality and the power of the middle class have shifted dramatically since Reagan, at least in the US

Maybe some of these impacts were unintended and things spiraled, but Reaganomics has had some extremely detrimental consequences - check the trends from when he became president and after, I think they say it all: https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/

 

[urban genie]

Mrs Vienna hates to hear that anyone has died, but she rang me to tell me the news, and I could hear the delight in her voice.

She absolutely hated the Grantham granny with a passion.

We had a bottle of decent champaign in the fridge waiting for the day she carked, and it was opened when she did, as did many others.

the evil hag is the only person I know who was either loved or depised with a passion

 

[Brewster's millions]

Example A M'Lud.

A selfish ****.

Says the bloke whose been on strike for months, stopping people getting to work, hospital appointments etc, all so he can get the pay rise he wants.

 

[SebastianBlue]

Thatcher was one of our greatest prime ministers.

Had vision, backbone and clarity of thought. She reinvigorated the country’s entrepreneurial spirit, freed the economy from its 1970s stupor and boosted social mobility in turn. How we could do with her now.

Thatcher did not boost social mobility. In fact, it has been on the decline since her premiership. It has been especially precipitous in the North, sadly.

Social mobility continues to fall – and moving up is harder if you grow up in the North or Midlands.

Inheritances will be twice as big on average for those born in the 1980s as for those born in the 1960s. In addition, parental earnings are a much stronger predictor of earnings for people born...

ifs.org.uk

https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CDP-2023-0071/CDP-2023-0071.pdf

 

[SebastianBlue]

Both before my time so take what I'm saying with a grain of salt.

But income inequality and the power of the middle class have shifted dramatically since Reagan, at least in the US

Maybe some of these impacts were unintended and things spiraled, but Reaganomics has had some extremely detrimental consequences - check the trends from when he became president and after, I think they say it all: https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/

One of the most damning charts that illustrates at least a portion of the detrimental impacts of Reagan’s economic policies and philosophy (again, I mean the full ideological apparatus around his rise and reign more then the man himself) that became so pervasive around the world in the following decades—and which ignores individual harm and goes straight to a place conservative economists and politicians claim to care about—is this one:

Notice anything interesting before and after 1980?

 

[Postman Pep]

The word that immediately came to mind was neoliberalism. They certainly weren't the brains behind it and there was an inevitably about the direction of travel away from the postwar consensus regardless of who was in charge.

In many ways they are bit part players who just happened to take power at a certain point in history. But the ideology was fully embraced on their watch and is their ultimate legacy.


After Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan took power, the rest of the package soon followed: massive tax cuts for the rich, the crushing of trade unions, deregulation, privatisation, outsourcing and competition in public services. Through the IMF, the World Bank, the Maastricht treaty and the World Trade Organisation, neoliberal policies were imposed – often without democratic consent – on much of the world. Most remarkable was its adoption among parties that once belonged to the left: Labour and the Democrats, for example. As Stedman Jones notes, “it is hard to think of another utopia to have been as fully realised.”

Neoliberalism – the ideology at the root of all our problems

Financial meltdown, environmental disaster and even the rise of Donald Trump – neoliberalism has played its part in them all. Why has the left failed to come up with an alternative?

www.theguardian.com