Reading 'Postwar' -- I never realized the depth of damage Margaret Thatcher did.

[byronius]

They're still digging out.

She had a vision -- a Friedrich Hayek-inspired fever-dream that would end in the wealthy prospering mightily while millions of working-class men and women suffered degradation, humiliation and death. Some 3.76 million British workers were thrown onto the slashed safety-net never to work again. Britain became hollowed-out, industry fled, schools and neighborhoods descended into squalor, misery took hold of the middle class and squeezed the life out of the nation.

But she never altered course, her admirers noted. She clung to that discredited, damaging philosophy in spite of all fact. Crying children and suicidal teenagers and despairing adults meant nothing next to the brilliance of the Idea.

Tony Judt's book is powerful. I'm learning a great deal, and one of the things he does so well is to translate complex economic movements into human terms. He makes one think -- what the hell are we doing here anyway? How many suffering humans have to be fed to the fires of the Idea before we stop theorizing that Mammon should come first?

I never understood how damaging Thatcher was until now. I understand how damaging Reagan was -- and now I understand the nature of the Idea better -- fancy language wrapped around concepts that benefit only the sociopaths while casually tossing generations into the fire.

'Conservative economic philosophy' is merely the Divine Right Of Kings for the modern age. That's all it is. And it spreads as much misery as it did in the Olden Days.

[malaise]

1. She was another vile cretin

Just a different version
What's more is that just like ReTHUGs today are the spawn of Reagan, the Cameron's, Faragrs, Boris Johnsons et al are her spawn.

[DemocracyMouse]

18. All true except for how we frame the argument:

We live in a scientific age and “The Idea” that Thatcher and Reagan shared was INVEST in the rich and it will generate a potent economy for all. It’s a dumb, not to mention predatory, idea cloaked in “pragmatism.”

Since such trickle down has PROVEN IMPIRICALLY not to work, we must switch the investment to the smallest units of business: the children and their immediate support structures (schools, net neutrality, the environment, green jobs).

But we won’t convince the middle class by being defeatest and say, “well, lets at least take care of the least fortunate.” Taking care of the least fortunate is a moral imperative, but the most effective argument MUST be couched in pragmatic terms just as Thatcher et al attempted.

Thus:

THATCHER, REAGAN, THE BUSHES AND TRUMP’s INVESTMENT IN THE OVERPAID AND THEIR CORPORATE INFRASTRUCTURE ONLY SERVES THE BILLIONAIRES.

INSTEAD, INVEST IN THOSE WHO STRUGGLE FOR THEY HAVE THE DETERMINATION AND THE NUMBERS TO GENERATE AN EXTENSIVE BOTTOM-UP ECONOMY.

SUPPORTING THE ENVIRONMENT, UPON WHICH ALL HUMAN SYSTEMS EMERGE, IS EQUALLY CRITICAL.

Our electoral system, when functioning, is like any organism’s regulatory system, returning energy (money) back to the individual cells.

All vital, living things emerge out of smaller parts. Thatcher’s Idea, hers and Reagan’s “trickle down,” is unscientific. Stimulus to the bottom saved us after the great Depression AND the Great Recession. The overpaid are parasites who keep stealing the results.

[malaise]

24. Nice post but i think it was more than that

It was an entire new world order complete with white supremacy and imperialism on steroids. We agree on the mixture of Hayek and Friedman which gave us devaluation, deregulation and divestment which led to the destruction of national economies, trickle down economics and the destruction of unions, workers' rights and benefits and job stability.
It sure made the rich richer.

[DemocracyMouse]

36. My post was about effective rhetoric.

You are introducing good things, but not really addressing my point about the importance of regenerative, bottom up infrastructure. Strong unions, etc., are part of the regenerative systems that, say, a Green New Deal should support.

I’m concerned about the Democrats metaphors and imagery, not the laundry list of things that Thatcher and Regan have hurt. How do we convince a majority of Anericans that there are better alternatives to Tgatcherism. We must show how we create a regenerative infrastructure by supporting the poor and middle class. It’s not just a handout.

[malaise]

37. You are 100% correct

but the discourse on Keynesian/Fabian Democratic Socialism needs to be repackaged so that citizens understand the importance of the state's role in infrastructure regeneration, healthcare and education.

The Reagan/Thatcher BS has set back all of humanity. How we present that list matters.

[DemocracyMouse]

54. OK, we're on a role.... and seem to agree! :-)

Another way I like to put it:

Instead of saying:
“It’s socialism VERSES capitalism” (insert alarm bells)

Let’s say this:
“It’s regenerative infrastructure SUPPORTING a citizens’ economy.”

We want to empower people to build their own lives, not repress them with the extremes of socialism and capitalism.

[Baitball Blogger]

2. Let's just make a list of the bad ideas in history that have caused human fatalities.

In the U.S.,

1) the Vietnam war is the most prominent for me. First of all, Nixon extended the war in order to become president, and, in my opinion, didn't suffer enough humiliation by getting pushed out of office. Adding insult to injury, he was given the credit for "ending" the war. Second, Robert MaNamara wouldn't end it early because he didn't want to look weak, in the face of the peace protests.

2) The mishandling of the AIDS crisis. The political-social clusterfuck is well documented in the book, "And the Band Played on."

3) How many errors were made in light of the 9/11 debacle? Not the least of all that we allowed the Republicans to get away with it.

Seriously, we have seen nothing but clusterfuck governance as long as I've lived!

[FakeNoose]

14. Failure to manage the sale of firearms - back when gun control was still possible

I remember when "gun control" was a thing we debated in high school and nobody had even heard of the NRA. I'm talking about the late 60's when Americans were still reeling from the assassinations of JFK, RFK, Medgar Evers and MLK and the attempted take-downs of many others. Tight restrictions could have been done then and it should have been done. But now it's way too late, firearms everywhere and people are way too nutty about the subject of gun control.

[erronis]

21. I agree with your list but it can be expanded by millions of other examples.

Many ideas look good on paper (or papyrus/clay) but won't work in action.

Most of these concepts when put into play are doing so with a lack of understanding of the real environment, an inability to deal with real-world perturbations, and always have fallible humans in critical roles.

From day-to-day decisions to those involving armies marching against each other, we are very poor at figuring out the "right" path. It's usually try something and then admit that it didn't work out. Your examples as well as 99% of the rest have the deciders not able to admit problems and not being able to correct the tactics.

[Baitball Blogger]

25. No leader in modern history resorted to accepting blame for bad ideas that

went sideways, then south. What did they do instead? Look for something positive to deflect or misdirect. Or blame someone else.

And we forget, for the longest time, something quirky happened to the media. Some want to claim that they were directing news in order to make money, but you also forget all those journalists who were pushed out early because they wouldn't play that game.

[msongs]

3. maggie would love companies like amazon. nt

[Me.]

4. Like She Loved Raygun

[workinclasszero]

5. She was Rayguns in a dress

[OnDoutside]

6. Yes, she did terrible damage. I remember being in a village in the South Wales Valleys where there

was 85% unemployment, people waiting for the Giro (Unemployment Benefit), and drinking it from Thursday to Sunday, broke the rest of the week. They were left to rot, like US governments did to people in the Steel & Coal country.

[appalachiablue]

20. +1 Left to rot is right. Thatcher the Slasher, conservative monster woman.

Too many of the left behind and damaged in deindustrialized areas in Wales, England & the US are sadly and wrongly drawn to fascist politics, xenophobia and racism of late. This dangerous course, a 1930s redux will not end well as history shows.

K & R, impt. post Byronius. We're still suffering from the 'free market' pollution of Frederick Hayak and his ilk. I've wondered about the difference between libertarianism and neoliberalism. Voila and the same sh*t:

In the last half-century of American politics, conservatism has hardened around the defense of economic privilege and rule. Whether it’s the libertarianism of the GOP or the neoliberalism of the Democrats, that defense has enabled an upward redistribution of rights and a downward redistribution of duties. https://www.thenation.com/article/nietzsches-marginal-children-friedrich-hayek/

[erronis]

23. Thanks for this cogent view - libertarianism and neoliberalism

I never really wanted to understand all these PoliSci terms, especially when the neos of both sides were redefining the world-view constantly. Now I understand that all of these fancy new "movements" are just ways for some of them to get more of it.

[SMC22307]

43. "They were left to rot, like US governments did to people in the Steel & Coal country."

Exactly. And that's what I get so pissed off at so-called Democrats who trash the WWC -- it's just not that simple.

[Gore1FL]

7. Same shit that Reagan did, but with a lesser economy. nt

[rurallib]

8. "'Conservative economic philosophy' is merely the Divine Right Of Kings for the modern age"

That might make a great bumper sticker

[Volaris]

16. Too many words for a cons bumper sticker for sure

(they've mitagted themselves to abbreviations like MAGA...idiots).
We haven't lived through a fuedal economic system like GB did...it's why we still have this debate.

Roosevelt (BOTH of them) knew what it would do to a Democracy, and therefore resisted. We were lucky that our guilded age only lasted maybe 50 years before it collapsed under it's own weight and greed...just saying.

[mastermind]

9. Thatcher showed reagan, and later presidents, that if you want to increase your market share

all you need to do is start a war.

[uponit7771]

10. +1, conservatism is " the Divine Right Of Kings for the modern age. "

[BannonsLiver]

11. This sums up the level of hatred she inspired

[sandensea]

13. "3 million pounds for Thatcher's funeral?" Scottish comedian Frankie Boyle asked incredulously

"For 3 million you could give everyone in Scotland a shovel, and we could dig a hole so deep we could hand her over to Satan in person."

[appalachiablue]

34. Poster child Thatcher earned it, 'More Suicides In Conservative Rule,' 2002.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2263690.stm



The suicide rate increased under Margaret Thatcher, PM 1979-1990.

[LisaM]

12. I remember the media censorship, particularly as it applied to Ireland.

She was no fan of freedom of the press.

[malaise]

38. She facilitated the rise of Murdoch

[YOHABLO]

15. She was from the conservative party in the UK. What do you expect? Oh and also

They made her a f..ing Baroness !! For what reason I am not sure, other than she supported the Queen and the Royals.

[Johnyawl]

17. The conservatives in the UK have the same core value as our republicans

As best expressed by Bill Clinton:
"The core value of the republican party is that wealth and power belong in the hands of the few"

Everything they do follows that.

[littlealex]

19. A great song about it

[SMC22307]

41. Morrissey: "Thatcher was a terror without an atom of humanity."

Back in the '80s I read the WaPo on a daily basis and listened primarily to music from the UK... that's where I learned about "Margaret Fucking Thatcher" (from the wonderful film "Pride" about Welsh coal miners and gay activist Londoners). She *was* a fucking terror and there's some seriously good music and film about it.

PS: Welcome to DU!

[erronis]

26. Love that analogy. And all they both got were lice.

(No insult to the Falklanders, just to the imperialists.)

[LudwigPastorius]

27. Thatcher and the Tories crushed labor unions under their boots.

They passed legislation that outlawed solidarity strikes and picketing. They passed laws that outlawed unions from engaging in political action, allowed employers to fire and selectively redeploy workers, and sequestred unions' assets if they broke industrial laws.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employment_Act_1980

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employment_Act_1982

One can only hope that Maggie is roasting in Hell right about now.

[luvtheGWN]

31. We lived in England pre-Thatcher (77-78).

It wasn't surprising that she and her fellow cons got elected, because things were pretty bad -- strike after strike after strike. British Leyland used to be a very fine car company but quality fell off tremendously, and the same held for many other industries.

I don't know who or what party could have successfully dealt with the problems, but Labour was in power then, so I guess folks thought the Cons would fix things. Never did they believe to what extent....

Thatcher was from a lower middle-class family and had ambition beyond belief to "rise far above her station". I think many of her policies and beliefs strove to meet those of the "upper clawsses" but she took them even further. She ended up being hated by the majority and despised by her own Party.

[appalachiablue]

48. Harold Wilson was PM when I was in Cambrige, summer 1975 and

things were ok and normal, pre Thatcher. Fortunately I missed the brutal years, retuning in the 1990s when she was gone. And what a change I noticed especially in London with the prevalence of bankers then.

Maggie the Monster

[47of74]

28. And to think PM May thinks she's the second goddamn coming of Thatcher.

[Denzil_DC]

29. I was just coming of age when she was first elected.

Her reign was a horrible time, and the country's never recovered.

She skewed the Overtoun Window way right, and it's never ratcheted back.

The current culmination of all this is reflected in this recent UN rapporteur's report on poverty in the UK (and this is before Brexit truly bites):

A UN inspector came to investigate poverty in Britain – here’s what he found
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/economy/2018/11/un-inspector-came-investigate-poverty-britain-here-s-what-he-found

[IncaRoads]

30. Anyone here a fan

of Pink Floyd's The Final Cut?

One of the three plotlines running through it is about Maggie and how she was fucking everyone over.

[vlyons]

32. You can blame Ayn Rand

and her philosophy of the virtue of selfishness. She bamboozled a generation of young idealists in the 1950s and 60s that the gov was evil and stole wealth from the capable capitalists to give free stuff to the moochers of society. She packaged her philosophy that everything should be privatized. You should be able to keep all the fruits of your labor and guiltlessly contribute nothing back to society. She made compassion for the needy to be a major character flaw. By god, no one was going to make her guilty for not contributing to a charity.

[appalachiablue]

35. Correct, Ayn Rand's influence was major. Shoulda been sent back

to the USSR, or never left! Another poison woman.

[octoberlib]

44. Yet she cashed those social security checks by god.

Ayn Rand was a fraud.

[vlyons]

45. She didn't need the money

She was quite wealthy. Alan Greenspan was one of her early disciples. She cashed the SSI checks, because she rationalized that it had been stolen from her in the first place without her permission. I wouldn't call her a fraud, because she sincerely believed her own ideology. But her philosophy was not one that resulted in personal happiness. I don't think that she was a happy person. Quite bitter and paranoid at the end of her life. Her marriage was rather empty. Her love affair with Nataniel Brandon was a disaster. But still her novels sell, and her accolytes imagine themselves heroic for being selfish and arrogant.

[mulsh]

33. Mr. Costello had a few things to day about the Iron Lady

[Hulk]

39. Always thought she and the senile one had a lot in common....

Mr. B-rate actor took this country backwards, and is now postered on their walls as some sort of god to "conservatism". This bull shit needs to stop. He was a destructive to our working man, middle class as any stuffed suit in history.

To hell with both of them....and their myth.

[TomVilmer]

40. Thatcher promised to follow Reagan to the end of the earth. He promised to organize it!

https://imageobjecttext.com/2013/04/09/gone/

[calimary]

42. Keep clinging for later study.

[moondust]

46. Reagan and Thatcher

had the post-war influence and strength to more or less dictate how western capitalism was going to work. If you wanted to do business with these two economic powerhouses you had to adapt to their way of doing things. And so neoliberalism spread.

[dlk]

47. Thatcher & Reagan Caused Tremendous Harm to Both Our Countries

They decimated the middle class to enrich those at the top. We may never recover.

[pansypoo53219]

49. i knew there was a reason i hated her. the terrible twins, reagan + thatcher.

[UTUSN]

50. Thanks

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51ViGoB2zgL._SX327_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg
***********QUOTE********
https://www.amazon.com/Postwar-History-Europe-Since-1945/dp/0143037757

Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945

Tony JUDT
Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize
Winner of the Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Book Award
One of the New York Times' Ten Best Books of the Year

Almost a decade in the making, this much-anticipated grand history of postwar Europe from one of the world's most esteemed historians and intellectuals is a singular achievement. Postwar is the first modern history that covers all of Europe, both east and west, drawing on research in six languages to sweep readers through thirty-four nations and sixty years of political and cultural change-all in one integrated, enthralling narrative. Both intellectually ambitious and compelling to read, thrilling in its scope and delightful in its small details, Postwar is a rare joy.

About the Author
Tony Judt was the Erich Maria Remarque Professor of European Studies at New York University, as well as the founder and director of the Remarque Institute, dedicated to creating an ongoing conversation between Europe and the United States. He was educated at King’s College, Cambridge, and the École Normale Supérieure, Paris, and also taught at Cambridge, Oxford, and Berkeley. Professor Judt was a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, The New Republic, The New York Times, and many journals across Europe and the United States. He is the author or editor of fifteen books, including Thinking the Twentieth Century, The Memory Chalet, Ill Fares the Land, Reappraisals: Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century, and Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945, which was one of The New York Times Book Review’s Ten Best Books of 2005, the winner of the Council on Foreign Relations Arthur Ross Book Award, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He died in August 2010 at the age of sixty-two.

*********UNQUOTE**********

[byronius]

53. One of the most powerful books I have ever read in my entire life.

Amazing talent.

[underpants]

51. Responding to save this one

This is what makes DU great.

I have time to kill at the in laws this weekend. Love to read comments and posts.

[dflprincess]

52. Google the speech Glenda Jackson made in the House

Of Commons on the occasion of Thatcher's death. Refreshingly honest about the damage Maggie did.

[Hamlette]

55. how is the book? Good reading?

[byronius]

57. Amazing.

My son kept suggesting it, now I understand why. So good.

[Hamlette]

58. thanks, I'm listening to a podcast on WWI, I'll read Postwar next.

[applegrove]

56. And then insecurity turns the 'little people' into authoritarian voters.

[QC]

59. I just ordered the book on your recommendation. n/t