What Role did Thatcherism Play in Reshaping the Economic Structure of England?

In John Osborne 's 1956 piece, Look Back in Anger, housewife Alison Porter is faced with the difficult decision of remaining in a toxic marriage or returning to live with her parents. Indeed, Alison is the archetype of the 1950s British woman, as depicted in both academic and popular discourse—meek, miserable and resigned to her fate as mother and housewife. While such a paradigm of the 1950s woman has long remained unchallenged, historians have begun to suggest that this stereotype is inaccurate and misleading, and overlooks the complexity of female gender roles during Britain of this era. When reviewing the literature on this topic, what emerges as a clear point of tension between academics is whether the 1950s was a static or a dynamic

Margaret Floy Washburn was born on July 25, 1871 in New York City to parents Reverend Francis and Elizabeth Floy Washburn. She was born in a time when women were not allowed to display any type of power, higher reasoning, or desire for higher education. At the age of seven, she began her educational journey in the home of a retired Presbyterian minister who lived next door to her family. In 1886, she graduated from high school at the young age of 15 years old. Upon completion of high school, she attended Vassar College where she studied Chemistry and French. However, by the time she had graduated her educational interests had changed to philosophy and science, which

Margaret Sanger was one of the most influential women of the 20th century. She worked tirelessly as a nurse tending to female patients in the slums of New York’s Lower East Side. This experience converted her into an activist, not only for feminism, but for fair working conditions in the textile industry. Margaret was a polarizing figure. She was seen as antagonistic, even by the groups she fought for. Nevertheless she continued to fight for her causes. The United States owes much to a poor woman from Corning, New York.

There are four types of forces of change that all contribute to changing the world. Industrialism is the development of market-based economy that uses machinery to improve production and efficiently distribute goods and services, democratic ideals is the support of the belief that all the power of the government comes from the people and that all humans have certain rights and freedoms that cannot be taken way, communication is the exchange of information, beliefs, and culture among individuals and societies, and nationalism unites people into a common, shared identity often based on culture, race, language, or geographic location. Although all four forces of change had a huge impact on the world, industrialism and nationalism were the primary

Margaret Thatcher was elected into office as the Conservative Party leader in 1979 in Britain. She replaced the Labour party’s James Callaghan, and ended the Labour party’s 5 year leadership. Thatcher was elected around the same time as her North American counterparts Ronald Raegan and Brian Mulroney who had similar conservative economic ideologies, which led to a change in global economy. She shrunk the public sector to favour privatized industry. She came into power seeking to reduce inflation, reduce the budget deficit, increase economic efficiency, increase home ownership, and reduce power of the trade unions. As will become evident, Thatcher’s controversial election changed western economics into a more capitalist market which led to great economic growth in the UK and other western countries, greater social inequality in Britain, and helped pave the way to power for women in the western world.

Britain’s nobility strove to prevent progressive change and opted for tradition. The upper classes of society utilized several mediums to oppress the working class and preserve the closing gap with the emergence of the middle class. For example, industrialization generated a huge demand for factory workers, and women were often desirable for they were perceived less than men and would earn a fraction of their male counterparts. Thus, although this marked a positive change for women to be self-sufficient backlash emerged funded by the upper classes of society to prevent change. Women were idealized as ‘angels of the house’ while being exposed to an arguable dystopian society for the working class. Also, during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

Margaret Thatcher introduced right wing ideas which sought to break away from the post war Keynesian consensus on state welfare (Scott-Samuel et al, 2014 pg 54). The conservative shifted to ideas of free market economics and the advocated for responsibility of the individual families for their own welfare and moral traditional values. Privatization and marketization was introduced into utilities such as water, electricity and gas. There was encouragement of free market ideas in health care and massive cuts on social welfare and reductions in state pensions.

Although she didn’t get the spot, she continued her journey with the same amount of determination. In 1959, Thatcher earned a seat in the House of Commons representing Finchley. When the Labour Party was in power from 1964 to 1970, she helped numerous positions in Edward Health’s shadow cabinet. During 1970, Edward became Prime Minister and Margaret was chosen to be the secretary of education. Margaret was known as “Thatcher, milk snatcher” after she eliminated the worldwide free school milk system. Her position became difficult, not because of the bad media surrounding her actions (such as eliminating the free school milk system) but because she had trouble getting the Prime Minister, Edward Heath to pay attention to her thoughts and

Thatcher inherited a country in a deep recession, politically and economically unstable, with an almost-bankrupt government and rising inflation and unemployment (Shwayder, 2013). She chose to battle this threat by attacking the seemingly indomitable trade unions and by privatizing institutions that were traditionally state-run, such as housing projects and public transit. Her policies reduced inflation and interest rates but pushed up unemployment to between 3.6 and 5 million, stunting Britain’s manufacturing output (Lakhani, 2013). Thatcher undoubtedly shattered some deeply held beliefs when she led the male dominated Conservative party to victory in the 1979 general election. However, the glass ceiling still remains firm.

Margaret had a sister, Muriel. Margaret learned early about politics from her father Alfred who served as both alderman and the mayor of Grantham. Margaret got into Oxford University, where she graduated with a degree in Chemistry. While she was at Oxford University, Margaret became fairly interested in politics.

Margaret last name was not originally Thatcher but she was first known as Margaret Roberts. Margaret was born on October 13, 1925 in Grantham, England. During this time women were known and represented by their fathers or their husbands more or less. However Margaret was someone who aspired to make a name for herself. She went to an all girl’s high school and showed a very high interest in politics at a very young age of 14. She was very different among most of her classmates when she was in high school. She was a very ambitious women at a very young age, she wanted to be the first women Member of Parliament. Her goals were set very high and aspiring to be an MP was a very far-fetched idea at the time. What Margaret accomplished in her life time set an example for all women that there is no limit of potential or triumph that a women can have and or achieve.

`Thatcherism` is a term that is broadly discussed by many scholars. Since 1979 many definitions are taken from books, journals, articles and other sources. According to Letwin (1992) all these definitions do not agree on one single meaning what Thatcherism means. (17). Nevertheless, she agrees that this term my have some sort of meaning and most commentators mention four headings that are the same. The first heading is an “enterprise shaped by economic concepts”. The second heading is “a drive for power”, the third heading is “a moral crusade” and the last heading is “an intrinsically self contradictory undertaking.” (Letwin 18).

During her term in the office, Margaret transformed almost every facet of British politics, she revitalized the economy, rebuilding the outdated establishment, and electrifying the nation’s foreign policy. Margaret Thatcher challenge and did very much to topple the attitude of decline, which had become rooted in the nation. She strived for national recovery with great energy and assurance.

Important Changes in the Political, Social and Economic Life in the UK There have been significant changes in political social and economic life in the UK over the last 50 years with particular reference to identity and the resulting ordering of our lives in terms of family, work and welfare together with the resulting impact on our health. Within the themes of structure and agency, uncertainty and diversity together with knowledge and knowing, this essay explores the consequences of some of these changes and how they may be beneficial for some and deletarious for others, depending upon which social category a person falls into. One of the consequences of these changes is that we now have

First, many have argued that Thatcherism contributed significantly into economic recovery of Britain after the war. This is mainly visible in its quest to control the rate of inflation which was a success. However, this success has been criticized for the huge level of unemployment it brought with it. The policy also managed to instill competition in the economy which facilitated growth of the economy. This was necessary to salvage the image which was heavily dented on the international scene. With these efforts, the conservative party had managed to win back the trust of its citizens. Thatcherism also brought the theory of monetarism. Through this theory, they discovered that inflation was caused by injecting excess money into the economy by printing money and this situation could be controlled by using the instruments of monetary policy to mop up the excess money supply. However, some economists have argued that the negative impacts of this policy overshadowed its positive contributions hence the system is considered a failure (Harvey 2010,