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

It’s weird because I would readily agree that Thatcher and Reagan set us on a bad path. One that may have made a segment of society well-off, but did so at the expense of something more fundamental to our social fabric.

That said, I have no doubt prime Thatcher would be absolutely rolling in her grave at the current Conservatives around today, as Reagan would be to see Trump.

Which leads me to believe that perhaps their lasting impact is more about how they set in motion a kind of weird devolutionary cycle. Increasingly more inept people morphed their ideology into something that became totemic rather than having some practical basis. They have gradually stripped it of any utility it might have once claimed to have had (even if that utility was to a narrow group and costly to wider society). And today they parade the skeleton of Thatcherism around as if it were still alive. And complete fools follow along pretending it is somehow still the same thing of ideological principle that it once was. Rugged free market capitalism. Remember that? The Conservatives who voted for Brexit don’t.

Basically they managed to create a political philosophy that seems to consistently degrade itself over time until it becomes… well… nothing really. Like a husk of itself. To all rational folk, they have seemingly left behind a group of people who are just gnashing their teeth while getting nothing done. Bizarre and depressing.
 
Reagan was an insidious man, he abandoned the Fairness Doctrine which paved the way for Fox News and allowed for the influence of right wing think tanks like the Heritage foundation which promoted neo-liberal economic thinking to gain influence in American politics. Thatcher followed a similar path as they both abandoned Keynesian economics in favour of Chicago and Austrian school economists such as Hayek. They were both anti-Communist, look up the Reagan Doctrine for what actually occurred. In December 1997, Thatcher said that the Reagan Doctrine "proclaimed that the truce with communism was over. The West would henceforth regard no area of the world as destined to forego its liberty simply because the Soviets claimed it to be within their sphere of influence."

The pair of them started the development of wealth disparity with those with Capital benefitting more than those without, they both attacked workers rights, they were in effect Philisophical and Economic bedfellows.
 
They made selfishness and greed respectable again. Once you go down the road of 'it's all about me' society is fucked. What's more, it's hard to restore.

Individualism, like capitalism, needs to be kept within bounds. If you want to wear a yellow hat, that's fine. No one is suggesting Mao suits for all. But at some point, you have to accept that the collective is the core of a functioning and civilised society.
 
Reagan understood that the Cold War was an economic war and that the USSR wouldn't be able to keep pace with the US in the long run. He changed the face of world Politics more than anyone else since WWII. His problem was he didn't have a plan for what to do in the aftermath.

Reagan also introduced the law that makes Americans declare all their global income in their tax returns.

Thatcher is a footnote outside of the UK.
 
I think their influence is overstated because it’s clear from looking at the world more widely that there has been a global shift towards more capitalist-centric economies since the ‘70s that is a natural and inevitable function of the evolution of globalisation, driven by market forces.

I think, in short, we’d likely be pretty much where we now are anyway, give or take.
 

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