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March 29 2024 8.02am

Margaret Thatcher

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View Moose's Profile Moose Flag In the sewer pipe... 29 Oct 14 2.57pm Send a Private Message to Moose Add Moose as a friend

Quote nickgusset at 29 Oct 2014 2.43pm

How to deal with the Thatcher stamp...


She could probably spell "lives" though. Must have been the education cutbacks in the Thatcher years, eh Nick?

 


Goodness is what you do. Not who you pray to.

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View serial thriller's Profile serial thriller Flag The Promised Land 29 Oct 14 2.59pm Send a Private Message to serial thriller Add serial thriller as a friend

Quote Johnny Eagles at 07 Oct 2013 4.34pm

At the risk of going off on a tangent, I would dispute that ‘Thatcherism’ was in any way socially conservative. Closing down traditional industries, flogging off council houses, centralising power at number 10, Thatcher was anything but a social conservative. She was a radical.

Economically she was ultra-liberal. I have a lot of sympathy for that (I am a strange, conflicted mixture of social conservatism and economic liberalism) and I think she achieved a great deal. Take privatisation. Many sclerotic state-run industries became economic powerhouses (eg, British Airways, British Telecom) and transformed the British economy permanently for the better. Indeed the rest of the world copied and continues to copy her with much success. (There were of course exceptions, eg, utilities and railways.)

Interestingly, there are also some world-leading British chemical and manufacturing companies which you don’t hear about in the mainstream media (unless you’re sad like me and listen to lots of business programmes on the radio) which were spun off out of the likes of ICI. Thatcherism isn’t all about fat cats and inequality.

Which isn’t to say it was all to the good. A socially more conservative PM would have recognised that you can’t just let the market rip up traditional industries and not expect a massive social fall-out. She was either naïve or just indifferent to that bit.

If she was indifferent, then you might justifiably call her cruel and callous. Personally, I suspect she was more naïve than indifferent. She once expressed regret that charitable giving and volunteering didn’t increase as she cut taxes. Coming from a strict Methodist background, she just assumed that if you got government out of the way, then you’d free up space for people to look after each other. It wasn’t her fault that most of them chose only to look after themselves.

I’m interested by your comments on Capitalism. For me, capitalism is just a fact of life, like gravity. Of course you can *officially* banish market forces, but ask anyone who lived in East Germany, capitalism was at work there alright, albeit preferring those with access to political capital rather than the financial kind.

As for “working towards egalitarianism”: I’d say that ideology’s been responsible for even more damage than Thatcherism!


I've always thought that the most dangerous views in society are those that are 'naturalised', ie seen as somehow an extension of human nature. You see it in feudalism, the idea that the King is a natural superior to the rest of humanity as he is given the rights by God, or even in Socialist disasters like Cambodia where the ingrained hegemonic ( ) perception of humans as naturally tending towards certain patterns caused mass destruction.

Let's get it straight. Capitalism historically, is only about 250 years old. It is essentially the protection and perpetuation of private property, nothing more, nothing less. It isn't something that we developed as tadpoles in the sea millions of years ago, and if we look back to monarchic ownership, state ownership or even rare examples of collective ownership, we see how historically contingent it is as an ideology. Like any ideology, including those that have lasted far longer than Capitalism, it will one day collapse, and given that we are currently seeing the bases of contemporary capitalism - quantitative easing, cheap industrial labour, and most importantly a relatively stable environment - falling apart, it is likely in the next couple of decades, I would say, that we will either see a dramatic alteration to Capitalism or a new economic system of asset ownership replace it.

 


If punk ever happened I'd be preaching the law, instead of listenin to Lydon lecture BBC4

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View Mapletree's Profile Mapletree Flag Croydon 29 Oct 14 3.09pm Send a Private Message to Mapletree Add Mapletree as a friend

Quote nickgusset at 29 Oct 2014 2.43pm

How to deal with the Thatcher stamp...


There's a Thatcher stamp?

Oh, I get it. Now we are all obliged to lick her behind, not just the Cabinet of the time.

But no, I am behind the times. Thatch will of course have a sticky behind nowadays. Still wouldn't use her though. Like sending a letterbomb.

 

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View Percy of Peckham's Profile Percy of Peckham Flag Eton Mess 29 Oct 14 3.37pm Send a Private Message to Percy of Peckham Add Percy of Peckham as a friend

Thatcher stamp??? ...is it part of a set to commemorate Halloween?

 


Denial is not just a river in Egypt!

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jamiemartin721 Flag Reading 29 Oct 14 4.17pm

Quote serial thriller at 29 Oct 2014 2.59pm

Quote Johnny Eagles at 07 Oct 2013 4.34pm

At the risk of going off on a tangent, I would dispute that ‘Thatcherism’ was in any way socially conservative. Closing down traditional industries, flogging off council houses, centralising power at number 10, Thatcher was anything but a social conservative. She was a radical.

Economically she was ultra-liberal. I have a lot of sympathy for that (I am a strange, conflicted mixture of social conservatism and economic liberalism) and I think she achieved a great deal. Take privatisation. Many sclerotic state-run industries became economic powerhouses (eg, British Airways, British Telecom) and transformed the British economy permanently for the better. Indeed the rest of the world copied and continues to copy her with much success. (There were of course exceptions, eg, utilities and railways.)

Interestingly, there are also some world-leading British chemical and manufacturing companies which you don’t hear about in the mainstream media (unless you’re sad like me and listen to lots of business programmes on the radio) which were spun off out of the likes of ICI. Thatcherism isn’t all about fat cats and inequality.

Which isn’t to say it was all to the good. A socially more conservative PM would have recognised that you can’t just let the market rip up traditional industries and not expect a massive social fall-out. She was either naïve or just indifferent to that bit.

If she was indifferent, then you might justifiably call her cruel and callous. Personally, I suspect she was more naïve than indifferent. She once expressed regret that charitable giving and volunteering didn’t increase as she cut taxes. Coming from a strict Methodist background, she just assumed that if you got government out of the way, then you’d free up space for people to look after each other. It wasn’t her fault that most of them chose only to look after themselves.

I’m interested by your comments on Capitalism. For me, capitalism is just a fact of life, like gravity. Of course you can *officially* banish market forces, but ask anyone who lived in East Germany, capitalism was at work there alright, albeit preferring those with access to political capital rather than the financial kind.

As for “working towards egalitarianism”: I’d say that ideology’s been responsible for even more damage than Thatcherism!


I've always thought that the most dangerous views in society are those that are 'naturalised', ie seen as somehow an extension of human nature. You see it in feudalism, the idea that the King is a natural superior to the rest of humanity as he is given the rights by God, or even in Socialist disasters like Cambodia where the ingrained hegemonic ( ) perception of humans as naturally tending towards certain patterns caused mass destruction.

Let's get it straight. Capitalism historically, is only about 250 years old. It is essentially the protection and perpetuation of private property, nothing more, nothing less. It isn't something that we developed as tadpoles in the sea millions of years ago, and if we look back to monarchic ownership, state ownership or even rare examples of collective ownership, we see how historically contingent it is as an ideology. Like any ideology, including those that have lasted far longer than Capitalism, it will one day collapse, and given that we are currently seeing the bases of contemporary capitalism - quantitative easing, cheap industrial labour, and most importantly a relatively stable environment - falling apart, it is likely in the next couple of decades, I would say, that we will either see a dramatic alteration to Capitalism or a new economic system of asset ownership replace it.

What we call modern capitalism, and Thatcherite neo-liberalism is much younger than that, and has its real basis in the works of Strauss and Milton Freedman and moneytrism - very much a product of the later 20th centuary.

Capitalism is a very broad collection of different ideas. The likes of Adam Smith (arguably the founder of capitalism) would have regarded Moneytrism and Globalisation as being reprehensible.

I quite agree that there is nothing naturalised about ecconomics of any kind, they're hypereal intellectualised shared cultural ideas about resource management and social structure.

Proto-capitalism is a million miles from a capitalist society.

The real issue of modern capitalism, is that it is no longer a philosophical concept, and has become divorced from the restraints of social justice, ethics and morality.

The problem isn't really with capitalism, its with the power of corporations, and their influence over the directive of states - and that is what is actually causing the growing disatisfaction. Similar to how fuedual systems eventually were eroded by the rising power of the middle classes, capitalisms will eventually be subsumed and replaced in the future.

The only thing natural is that eventually all systems are replaced and contain their own causal failures.

 


"One Nation Under God, has turned into One Nation Under the Influence of One Drug"
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View thegreatlardino's Profile thegreatlardino Flag crawley/selsey 29 Oct 14 4.21pm Send a Private Message to thegreatlardino Add thegreatlardino as a friend

dont tell me she has come back to life!!!

 


They're justified, and they're ancient
And they drive an ice cream van

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View Fatherken's Profile Fatherken Flag 29 Oct 14 4.31pm Send a Private Message to Fatherken Add Fatherken as a friend

I have a size 11 boot that can give a good stamp

 

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View Qwijibo's Profile Qwijibo Flag Bournemouth 24 Apr 16 12.08am Send a Private Message to Qwijibo Add Qwijibo as a friend

Secretly though, would you? I mean now, if no one found out?

 

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