NEO-LIBERALISM AND MORALITY IN THE MAKING OF THATCHERITE SOCIAL POLICY

After 1945, neo-liberal thinkers and think-tanks in the US and UK outlined different state welfare systems for the poor, such as Milton Friedman's negative income tax. These were underpinned by a rational, economistic conception of human nature. Between 1975 and 1979, Thatcher's Conservati...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Historical journal 2012-06, Vol.55 (2), p.497-520
Main Author: SUTCLIFFE-BRAITHWAITE, FLORENCE
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Conceptualization
Conservatism
Conservative parties
Economic liberalism
England
Ethics
European history
Great Britain
Human Nature
Ideology
Income taxes
Individualism
Low Income Groups
Marginality
Middle Class
Morality
Negative income taxes
Neoliberalism
Policy making
Political Parties
Political science
Politics
Poverty
Public assistance programs
Recent political history
Social Policy
Socialism
Tax benefits
Tax credits
United Kingdom
Welfare State
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Summary:After 1945, neo-liberal thinkers and think-tanks in the US and UK outlined different state welfare systems for the poor, such as Milton Friedman's negative income tax. These were underpinned by a rational, economistic conception of human nature. Between 1975 and 1979, Thatcher's Conservative party abandoned attempts to develop comprehensive, state-led, paternalistic schemes to tackle poverty. Thatcherites focused instead on creating what they saw as a rational tax/benefit system which would provide a safety-net for the poor, but encourage effort and thrift. They attempted to marginalize the importance of state welfare for the middle classes, to re-invigorate the ‘bourgeois virtues’ which had flourished in Victorian Britain. A family-centred, moralistic individualism underpinned Thatcherite policies; this individualism was not precisely congruent with that of neo-liberal theorists. Its roots lay in personal sources (particularly Methodism), as well as home-grown discourses on poverty and a Hayekian fear of the state. Though Thatcherites took ideas from diverse sources, their political project had a single guiding purpose: the moral (and, secondarily, economic) rejuvenation of Britain. Thatcherism was, thus, an ‘ideology’ in the sense used by Michael Freeden.
ISSN:0018-246X
1469-5103
DOI:10.1017/S0018246X12000118