Margaret Thatcher's version of a "conservative revolution"

Gerhard Altmann did a review in 2003 (Twentieth Century British History 14:1) on a book about British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who first made free-market fundamentalist neoliberalism the dominant governing ideology in British politics, a book by Dominik Geppert, Thatchers konservative Revolution. Der Richtungswandel der britischen Tories 1975-1979 (2002). In summarizing the events covered in Geppert's book, Altmann describes the chain of events that established Thatcherism as the ascendant ideology:

Thathcher's ideology was perceived as a significant policy departure even by many in own Conservative Party. Altmann writes that by the 1990s, "New Labour" led by Tony Blair had "unashamedly embrace[d] its economic tenets and foreign policy approach."

This must doubtless astonish those who take the perspective of the mid-1970s when Thatcher set out to put paid to the much-vaunted post-war consensus. For the odds seemed so glaringly against her that few members of her own party expected her to make it to the next general election as leader of the opposition (and some even hoped for her untimely political demise). [my emphasis]

Thatcher exploited the changes in the world economic system marked by the oil crisis and the end of the Bretton Woods system to sell her own version of a conservative revolution as the solutions to the problems that had become more dramatically evident to more people:

The verities of the political generation that had boldly established the welfare state and gracefully bowed out of the empire appeared to have outlived their usefulness. Nor did the incumbent Labour government show much adroitness at tackling these problems. The country reached its nadir when the Chancellor had to go cap in hand to the International Monetary Fund, which conjured up associations with the plight of the Third World. It was in this specific context that Thatcherism as a 'radical strategy of crisis management' (p. 13 [Geppert]) could become the clarion call to action. [my emphasis]

And Thatcher made her pitch in a kind of elitist-populist manner:

Thatcher skilfully appealed to the instincts of ordinary party members and society at large, mostly over the heads of the Tory grandees and by deftly challenging taboos. For instance, she held up the 1930s, of all decades, as a period of self-help and solidarity, and, by the same token, vilified the sixties as the age of inertia and moral decay. Moreover, Keynesianism - the economic creed of all post-war governments - was condemned for stultifying the individual's initiative and saddling the state with tasks that drained off private wealth without adding to public prosperity.

Left and liberal critics, along with the occasional antiwar libertarian, point out the ideological prejudice against government programs as being inefficient, ineffective, and altogether inferior to private business is almost never mentioned by conservatives - or by most liberals - in reference to denfese spending. That's in large part a function of the fact that the military budget provides huge profits to private business through military purcahses. And over the last two decades, a significant portion of military functions previously performed by the official military have been privatized. Including the reckless use of mercenaries. Privatization of military functions flourished during the Cheney-Bush Admininstration. See, for instance, Mahlon Apgar IV and John Keane, New Business with the New Military Harvard Business Review Sept 2004:

The “military-industrial complex” that President Eisenhower first recognized is taking new form. Then, the Department of Defense (DoD) and the four military services (the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, and Air Force) were closely tied to a few major weapons contractors that managed large programs within a labyrinth of detailed regulations and specifications. Now, the military is turning to nontraditional business partners to meet a wide range of needs, from health care to housing to information technology. In essence, the long-standing government monopoly on every aspect of national security is being replaced by a more businesslike model in which DoD’s warfighting capabilities are supported through outsourcing and business alliances for numerous noncombat functions.

But the dominant narrative from the neoliberals shifted criticism of government services toward more emphasis on efficiency and away from the dogmatic, pseudo-ethical idea that some things like unemployment insurance were just illigitimate. Not that the latter has died out, it certainly hasn't. But for New Labour in Britain and corporate Democrats in the US, the neoliberal rhetoric allowed them to sound innovation, forward-looking, and respectably edgy while supporting conservative positions on government services.

Thatcher also saw the advantage of asymmetric partisan polarization, as Altmann recalled, "Thatcher poured scorn on the tedious search for compromise. Responding to a truculent mood which emerged from the very centre of the ideological spectrum, she honed her image as a conviction politician and applied the divisive rhetoric of the cold war to the British arena."

And, similar to the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) in the US, more established British Labour politicians were already surrendering their previous pro-worker and left-leaning positions. Laobur Prime Minister, "Denis Healey had already begun - and not without success - to dismantle Keynesianism and to inject a dose of monetarism into the ailing British economy when Prime Minister Callaghan's decision not to call an autumn election in 1978 eventually spelt disaster for Labour."

Ezra Klein's article The president’s job is to manage risk. But Trump is the risk. Vox 05/18/2020 describes a situation that is in no small created by the ideological notion that "gubment" is inefficient and ineffective - except for our glorious military, of course. Developing a substantial consituency that holds civilian government generally in dismissive contempt doesn't work well in preparing a serious problems and setbacks like the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent recession. As Klein notes:

The federal government’s primary job is risk management. If that sounds strange to you, just follow the money. More than 50 percent of the federal budget is devoted directly to social insurance programs like Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid — programs that insure Americans against the risks of illness, old age, and financial disaster. Another 16 percent goes to defense spending, which, in theory, protects us from the risks posed by other countries and terrorist networks. Together, safety net programs and military spending account for almost three-quarters of federal spending. [my emphasis]

The North Atlantic brand of neoliberalism symbolized by Thatcher and Ronald Reagan was a significant shift in the dominant ideology of how government as an insurance function needs to work.