THE LEGACY OF MARGARET THATCHER

The secret of Margaret Thatcher's success lies in a combination of qualities, which both saw her into leadership and were the essence of her period in power:

• COURAGE to see an opportunity and take it.
• DECISIVENESS in times of crisis.
• CLEAR BELIEFS held with an evangelical zeal.
• INTELLECTUAL CAPACITY.

Monetarism underpinned all Margaret Thatcher's policies. The beliefs were clear and are still what a free country needs to prosper. The aims were clear: to reduce the power of government, to reduce taxation and thereby promote private enterprise and individual rights, to give incentives to businessmen and encourage competition. Margaret Thatcher believed that these aims would produce economic and fiscal benefits for the people and enable her to use the political process to further the free society in all its aspects.

When Margaret Thatcher took office, there were 3 million private shareholders; when she left, there were almost 11 and a half million.

The need to cut bureaucracy and public spending was tackled from the outset, and between 1979 and 1987 the number of civil servants was reduced by 22.5 percent (732,000 to 567,000). The truly radical changes were introduced between 1987 to 1990. Only a small core of advisers was to be retained to run government machinery, and most civil servants would work for new executive agencies, attached to ministries. Precise targets were to be set and held to. Although the reforms were properly effected after Margaret Thatcher had left office, she had changed the culture of the machinery of government.

Margaret Thatcher's part in the fall of Russian Communism bridged her American and European policies. She wanted the Eastern European countries free and absorbed into the European Community.

Her dealings with the European Community were a different matter. There was no meeting of minds with her European partners. The protectionist, bureaucratic structure was contrary to British tradition. The price she paid was high. The economic recession in the late 1980s persuaded her into the single market. She saw it as beneficial for commerce and the extension of free trade. Her continental partners saw it not only as economic but political: the move to a single European state.

To sum up, Thatcher succeeded in drastically reducing inflation in a country that had become dependent on it; taming the power of what were probably the most powerful labor unions in Europe; privatizing a large portion of a bloated public sector; enacting a tax code more favorable to entrepreneurship and investment; and establishing the conditions for long-term economic growth. Thatcher’s success was the result of her PRINCIPLED AND UNCOMPROMISING LEADERSHIP. She dared do what no one else had had the courage to do in Britain for decades: challenge the prevailing consensus, the common wisdom, the entrenched interests, and drive a reluctant party and a befuddled country in a radically new direction.

What Can We Learn from Thatcher?

Mrs. Thatcher's success owes much to the intellectual revolution in economic theory. She did not invent anything new; there was nothing novel or original in her economic policies. However, while those ideas had been available for a long time, they had not been translated into policy changes until she came about. It was her LEADERSHIP, COURAGE, DETERMINATION, AND INTELLECTUAL INTEGRITY that allowed those intellectual insights to inspire actual economic policies and change Britain.