Issue 7, July - September 1988
by Jack Lane
Mrs Thatcher declared recently that
"There is no such thing as society, only families and individuals".
It was a very significant remark because it obviously encapsulates what she believes in. It sums up her considered views on society and politics. It is surprising that Labour has not drawn more attention to it and attempted to point out its implications.
One implication is that Maggie cannot be considered a Tory except in the very broadest sense of the term. It would probably entail too great a sacrifice of anti-Tory sentiments for Labour's leading lights to be able to say this. But it is a fact nonetheless.
Toryism is based essentially on the premise that society is anything but a collection of individuals. It reckons that if it were ever reduced to that state then society would have collapsed. Individuals exist and flourish only insofar as there is a well-defined framework, called society, in which they can operate. The attitudes, beliefs, prejudices, culture etc. that bind society together is the substance of politics. Disregard or belittle those bonds, and individuals can very quickly become rather pathetic beings living, or rather suffering, an animal-like existence.
A social jungle
Some admirers of unlimited competition think that it will have a good effect on people; weeding out the unfit and enabling the better-adapted to survive. But competition without a social framework will favour the worst human qualities, not the best. Al Capone would do much better than Albert Einstein. St Francis of Assisi would be no match for Cesare Borgia. The crude, greedy and cunning would do best.
The most animal-like of all will be the individual capitalist who can be relied on to survive and thrive in any environment from the literal jungle to the metaphorical jungle of the market economy. He will exist whatever level of society there is and will have the same virtues and vices. His interests certainly do not coincide with those of society. Running a society involves matters that are not dreamt of in his philosophy.
Maggie obviously believes that there is a marvellous harmony of interest between public and private interests. She has no experience of a society where maintaining the general and public interest has not become almost a matter of habit. She assumes that the individual interests of individual capitalists will be in harmony with general social needs. And she promotes government policies to facilitate this presumed harmony.
And not only government agencies. She recently had the bishops down to Chequers to account for themselves. They were no doubt treated as the moral agents of her policies who were not behaving properly in that role.
All behaviour that does not fit into this world view is considered some kind of aberration. All kinds of issues from football hooliganism to Moslem fundamentalism can be explained away by mind-emptying concepts like terrorism.
The mechanics of the market
Thatcher's view is essentially a mechanical view of the world. The world is driven and directed by the market economy and all other matters are extraneous. They are either a help or a hindrance, but not real issues in themselves. She is living up to the most simplistic pop-Marxist notions. But the irony is that the simplistic Marxists have been pontificating for so long about it that they no longer can distinguish between reality and fantasy and have become the most paralysed part of the body politic. Rigor mortis has probably set in.
The real Toryism
Toryism by contrast has what can best be described as an organic view of society. It grows and develops and sometimes it rots in places. It needs cultivating and care and it is all a bit of a mystery if you are concerned with fundamental questions and answers.
Harold Macmillan had a penchant for using musical analogies. It was like conducting an orchestra or playing the piano. It was essential to be able to appreciate the difference between a harmonious arrangement and a cacophony. In any case, you learn skills on how to cope with the various elements and you develop an instinct for assessing whether you are failing or succeeding. Any element can be just as important as another, and too much of anything is a disaster. Even too much growth.
Should Labour care?
Is all of this any concern to Labour? We would suggest it is of vital importance because it is now quite clear that Toryism is objecting strongly to Thatcherism and could very well replace it if Labour is not able to do so.
Toryism's potential should not be underestimated. No other party has been an actual or potential party of government for such a long period. Few, indeed, have managed it for even one century. Laughing at 'stupid Tories' may get a good cheer at gatherings of the Labour Party faithful. But if Labour is not to become just an ever-dwindling band of 'the faithful', it is necessary to look at the Tories as they actually are.
Labour can only succeed, in both the short and the long term, if it steals some Tory clothes and acquires some of the skills and attitudes that have made Toryism so successful for the past three hundred years. The present government has discarded a lot of its Tory clothes and they are there to be picked up.
Deterministic Thatcherism
It should be remembered that the Thatcher revolution over a decade ago adopted quite consciously the economic determinist view of the world which was up to then the accepted view of the Left. It was used with a vengeance against the Left, but it established quite clearly that clothes-stealing is acceptable behaviour in British politics.
What is now apparent is that the Thatcher revolution is finally coming into its own.
The conventional Left has cried wolf so often that they have the same problem as the boy in the story. When the wolf really turns up, they have nothing new to say, and no one listens to them. Disaster and reaction have been predicted so often that the reality of either is no longer recognisable.
Morals and policies
The mainstream Labour movement also has yet to establish a realistic perspective that can cope with Thatcher. More importantly, they have yet to establish a moral perspective that can cope with her.
Morality in the political arena is no more than the ability to recognise and the courage to cope with the major problems facing a society. Thatcher came to power by default -- because Labour was not able to cope with its own power in the 1970s. It could not channel the power of the working class in a constructive direction.
Labour was the natural party of government and it shied away from putting its own house in order. Instead it allowed organised labour, through the trade unions, to become an "overmighty subject" in the kingdom. And such subjects are not tolerated. Not even by most of the individuals whose collective power was being expressed through the trade unions. The Labour Party was supposed to put such power to good ends, and it failed to do so. It thereby lost its moral authority, and that is why it has declined.
Labour has to start by recognising these facts. Having done so, it could possibly be in a position to replace Thatcher. Because it is now being recognised that she has let capital -- in particular the money men and the speculative traders -- become an overmighty subject. Also that the trade unions are still being kicked when they are laid low and flat on their backs, which is quite wrong from the standard British view of things.
The real Thatcherism
Thatcherism is now coming into its own in a real sense. Up to now it has been a policy of reforms that by and large were acceptable in themselves. However if they are treated as simply a preparing of the ground for the real thing -- an attempt at the atomisation of society that would gladden the hearts of Hayek, Friedman etc., then that will change the attitude of the electorate towards her.
All the indications are that Thatcher sees herself as having simply prepared the ground up till now. The 'real thing' is reflected in the poll tax, the social security changes, the new trade union legislation, privatisation of electricity supply, water, sewerage, the civil service, museums, art galleries etc.
There may even be a continuation of such things as the selling of graveyards for 5p a time, which was done by a clone of hers in charge of Westminster City Council. Perhaps the dead are to be encouraged to stand on their own two feet!
If Labour had had its act together, there is no doubt that the selling of graveyards could have been the symbolic nemesis of Thatcherism, just as the gravediggers' strike was Labour's nemesis during the Winter of Discontent.
Labour's opportunity
We would hope that the Labour leadership will appreciate fully the chasm that is appearing in the Tory party. And that it will be able to make a genuine common cause, based on coherent principles, with the anti-Thatcher forces.
If it did so, it would be the surest means of establishing itself with the electorate as a party to be trusted with government. If it does not do so, it will simply become lobby fodder for the Tories in their fight against Thatcherism.
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