dominated British party politics since the era ofButskellism. Her political
philosophy, though always eclectic, had two main thrusts. The first was an
economic policy ofmonetarism, in contrast to the prevailingKeynesian
orthodoxy. (It should be noted, however, that monetarism was beginning to be
accepted even by the Labour government of 1974–79, and has since become
almost as much of an orthodoxy as Keynesianism had been.)
The second thrust was the idea of ‘rolling back the state’, of creating private
opportunity and personal responsibility in all areas of life. This took many
forms. Perhaps the most representative was theprivatizationof nationalized
industries, as in the selling to the public and to industry shares in the water,
electricity, gas and telecommunications utilities. Thatcherism also encom-
passed the reduction of the role of central or local government in many
traditional areas such as council housing, and was extended to decentralization
of functions which had to stay in the state domain. Thus the National Health
Service and the schools system were reformed, with hospitals and schools
encouraged to take more direct control over their own budgets and prac-
tices.
Thatcherism was so pervasive that it is difficult to put any bounds on its
reach. Thatcher was opposed to the power of large institutions, especially if
they had aspects of a monopoly position. For example the exclusive rights of
opticians to sell reading glasses, or of solicitors to conveyance in the sale of
houses, were taken away, and even the privileges of barristers over ordinary
solicitors were eroded. The first target of this approach, however, was the
trade unionmovement, and a series of pieces of legislation massively reduced
the ability of unions to callstrikesand generally restricted their practices.
Naturally there were many other aspects to Thatcher’s policies. She was
right-wing in a conventional way across the policy spectrum: tough onlaw
and orderissues, close to the USA in foreign policy and dubious of the
European Communities (now theEuropean Union) less moved by social
injustice than some, but none of these are specifically ‘Thatcherite’ attitudes.
Thatcherism, were it to be analysed by a political theorist, would concentrate
on her notion of freedom and responsibility of the individual in a way that links
her far more withlibertarianismand 19th centuryliberalismthan with the
traditional ‘Tory’ philosophy of the Conservative Party. Her influence on the
Conservative Party began to wane shortly after she was removed from power,
and by the beginning of the 21st century very few Conservative politicians
were comfortable with a Thatcherite label.
Theocracy
A theocracy is any political system run by clerics, or by and along the tenets of
any organized religion. There are few modern examples, though the state of
Theocracy