Speaker 1: A lot of fundamental principles of.
Speaker 2: Last little cells and any individual lots.
Speaker 1: This is the show. Oh right, everybody, welcome to you
Speaker 1: one book show on this Monday, October twentieth. This is
Speaker 1: the second show today special edition. We're going to be
Speaker 1: talking about Marga Thatcher.
Speaker 2: Marga Thatcher Today was a sponsored show by Alexus and
Speaker 2: also approximately one hundredth anniversary to Marga Thatcher's birth, So
Speaker 2: thank you Alexis first for sponsoring this. You too can
Speaker 2: sponsor the show on any topic you want, so take
Speaker 2: that into account. So we're going to be talking about
Speaker 2: Marga Thatcher, uh kind of history, a little bit about her,
Speaker 2: what she did, her time in office, and the kind
Speaker 2: of global impact, global impact she had.
Speaker 1: And yeah, you.
Speaker 2: Can ask questions super chat, you can ask about Bogatacci,
Speaker 2: you can ask about politics, you can ask about anything
Speaker 2: you want.
Speaker 1: As always, I am here to answer your questions. So
Speaker 1: free for you to ask about anything.
Speaker 2: And remember the super chat and the stickers a way
Speaker 2: to support the show.
Speaker 1: Value for value.
Speaker 2: You know, we live in times where it really is
Speaker 2: impossible to admire anybody in politics. I mean, the best
Speaker 2: you can say about somebody in politics these days is
Speaker 2: they're not as bad as but there's really nothing positive.
Speaker 2: There is nobody who makes a positive case for liberty
Speaker 2: of freedom. There's nobody the one can look up to
Speaker 2: from a mall perspective as somebody who who is principled,
Speaker 2: even if we don't agree completely with their principles. And
Speaker 2: when you do find somebody a principle, they're more likely
Speaker 2: to be status principles. They're more likely to be principles
Speaker 2: of religion, principles of.
Speaker 1: Some form of statism. You know. Maybe the most principled politicians.
Speaker 2: We have right now, those advocates of Christian conservatism. That
Speaker 2: was not always the case. And we're going to talk
Speaker 2: about Margat Thatcher today. And look, Margotacha is no objective saint,
Speaker 2: she is no ideal politician.
Speaker 1: But I'm going to argue the Margat Thatcher.
Speaker 2: Was a woman, first of all, a strong, powerful woman
Speaker 2: with an incredible speaker, with real rhetorics, somebody who believed
Speaker 2: in certain principles and tried to implement them and articulated them,
Speaker 2: and a woman who landed up without any question changing
Speaker 2: the world, changing England, changing the United Kingdom where she lived,
Speaker 2: but changing the world because she inspired change all over
Speaker 2: the world, not.
Speaker 1: Just in her home country.
Speaker 2: So you know we're gonna we're gonna talk about that,
Speaker 2: We're gonna talk about what she did, We're going to
Speaker 2: talk about the legacy. We're going to talk about who
Speaker 2: she influenced and so on. But you know, some of
Speaker 2: this is I think significant in terms of the contrast
Speaker 2: that we see with the middle of the road.
Speaker 1: Stand for nothing.
Speaker 2: Uh, pragmatists or powerlusters that exists today, We're all of them,
Speaker 2: without exception, are statists.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: And we lived through I lived to some of us
Speaker 2: live through and where we had Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. Again,
Speaker 2: neither one of them perfect, neither one of them mighty
Speaker 2: ideal from it, but as compared to anybody today, head
Speaker 2: and shoulders, head and shoulders, and maybe a lot more
Speaker 2: than that, above anybody in our world, in our political universe.
Speaker 1: Today, and both.
Speaker 2: At least presented themselves and presented arguments for freedom, for liberty, for.
Speaker 1: Smaller, more limited government.
Speaker 2: So let's talk about kind of the biography a little
Speaker 2: bit of Margat Thatcher. We'll get into what she actually did,
Speaker 2: and then into her legacy. So Thatcher was born about
Speaker 2: one hundred years ago, thirteenth of October nineteen twenty five,
Speaker 2: in the town of Grantham in Lincolnshire, England. So kind
Speaker 2: of rule will England if you will. She was born
Speaker 2: to a kind of lower middle class family. Her father
Speaker 2: owned a grocery business. So as comparison to many, maybe
Speaker 2: probably most, of the prime ministers in the history of England,
Speaker 2: she did not come from an upper class, from aristocratic
Speaker 2: or a very very prominent family. She came from a
Speaker 2: grocery business. Her father owned the grocery. They literally lived
Speaker 2: above the grocery store. Her father was also quite active politically.
Speaker 2: He was also a lay preacher at the Methodist Church.
Speaker 2: But he was an older man, and he sat on
Speaker 2: the finance committee and at some point even.
Speaker 1: Became mayor of Grantham.
Speaker 2: And indeed, Margaret Thatcher's first exposure to politics came from
Speaker 2: her father's campaigns and working and seeing her father her
Speaker 2: father's kind of civic roles and civic a positions, and
Speaker 2: watching the campaigns and watching him perform in those roles.
Speaker 2: My guess is she also got her I mean, she
Speaker 2: obviously developed it herself, but she benefited from having a
Speaker 2: father who had quite a ability a rhetorical ability, which
Speaker 2: made him a kind of a lay preacher at.
Speaker 1: The Methodist Methodist Church.
Speaker 2: Of course, the Methodist environment, the Methodist religion was very
Speaker 2: much about discipline, moral rectitude, community service.
Speaker 1: Things that I think ultimately.
Speaker 2: To some extent shaped the character of a Margathach or
Speaker 2: help shape her character.
Speaker 1: She you know, she grew up in the backdrop of
Speaker 1: World War two. Really if you.
Speaker 2: Think about the fact that she was born in twenty five,
Speaker 2: the war breaks out in thirty nine, so she was
Speaker 2: fourteen when the war broke out. By the time is over,
Speaker 2: she is a young woman of twenty. So the war years,
Speaker 2: years of difficulty and years of struggle for anybody in England,
Speaker 2: years of relative poverty with again I think really really
Speaker 2: important in maybe shaping her. She was super bright. She
Speaker 2: attended local schools what's called in England, and grammar school,
Speaker 2: which is a kind of a better public school, public
Speaker 2: school with entrance exams standards, was a gals school.
Speaker 1: She had strong you know, she was good at school.
Speaker 1: She was strong academic abilities.
Speaker 2: And again you know, continue to live above the grocery store,
Speaker 2: pretty simple life again, lower middle class kind of life.
Speaker 1: In nineteen forty three, so just before they of the
Speaker 1: end of the world. When she was.
Speaker 2: Eighteen, she wanted admission to some college in Oxford. Oxford University,
Speaker 2: so the premiere or one of the one of the
Speaker 2: premier universities in England. I don't want to piss off
Speaker 2: the Cambridge crowd, and where she studied.
Speaker 1: Chemistry, chemistry.
Speaker 2: While at Oxford studying chemistry, she became active in student
Speaker 2: politics and she ended up serving as president of the
Speaker 2: Oxford University Conservative Association. But he was a young woman
Speaker 2: going into the sciences. She graduated with honors, and she
Speaker 2: when she left the university, she went and worked as
Speaker 2: a researcher, research chemic chemist at a.
Speaker 1: Plastic and food company. But she never really.
Speaker 2: Enjoyed it or particularly liked it. She was not a
Speaker 2: scientist at heart. And uh, you know, but she was
Speaker 2: academically competent. She was obviously, you know, had the ability
Speaker 2: to study science. She was obviously good at math, good
Speaker 2: at science. She was a smart woman, very smart woman.
Speaker 2: But immediately at Oxford she'd engaged in politics, and very
Speaker 2: quickly after taking a job in chemistry, she left and
Speaker 2: went to study law, like I guess most people in
Speaker 2: politics went to study law and became a barrister. Now
Speaker 2: I don't know what a barrister is. It's like a lawyer.
Speaker 2: But you know in England they have all these different
Speaker 2: kinds of lawyers that it's complicated, you know. Anyway, by
Speaker 2: the only nineteen fifties, she starts pushing a political career.
Speaker 2: The first time she wants four parliament she loses. Indeed,
Speaker 2: I think she loses a number of races before she
Speaker 2: finally gets in. In nineteen fifty one, she married Dennis Thatcher,
Speaker 2: who is a successful business man. The fact that he
Speaker 2: was successful and made money allowed her really to She
Speaker 2: basically had financial independence at this point, allowed her to
Speaker 2: focus on.
Speaker 1: A political career.
Speaker 2: She didn't have to worry about work, and he throughout
Speaker 2: her life. I mean, as far as I can tell,
Speaker 2: basically provided kind of a support, a backbone in while
Speaker 2: she pursued her.
Speaker 1: Politics.
Speaker 2: I mean, he was the first gentleman of Downing Street,
Speaker 2: and really the first first gentleman because she was the
Speaker 2: first female Prime Minister of England. But from everything I've seen,
Speaker 2: everything I've read, incredibly supportive.
Speaker 1: Strong man.
Speaker 2: You need to be a strong man to be married
Speaker 2: to a strong woman, and incredibly supportive. So here's a
Speaker 2: woman who studied science and goes into politics, brings to
Speaker 2: that politics, I think, an incredibly strong work ethic.
Speaker 1: A origins in.
Speaker 2: A kind of in a lower middle class environment, which
Speaker 2: I think helped her with a lot of her constituency.
Speaker 2: She wasn't one of these snobbish upper class.
Speaker 1: People coming in.
Speaker 2: She could relate to the common man and somebody who
Speaker 2: had some experience through her father in kind of politics,
Speaker 2: in political role and so on.
Speaker 1: She'd got a great education.
Speaker 2: And again incredibly smart, incredibly able, incredibly hard working. She
Speaker 2: was finally elected to parliament in nineteen fifty nine as
Speaker 2: a Member of Parliament from the constituency of Finch, which
Speaker 2: is in North London. Early on in the parliament she
Speaker 2: was at what's called in England a backbencher, right, so
Speaker 2: this is a junior a junior position within the political party,
Speaker 2: but you're in parliament but not that important. And as
Speaker 2: a backbencher though she was very active in policy issues,
Speaker 2: she was interested in them and again hard working, hardworking
Speaker 2: and very clear. She already at this point she clearly
Speaker 2: had principles, she knew what she wanted, she had a
Speaker 2: clear things she aligned with and during this period she
Speaker 2: was part of what was called then the reformist wing
Speaker 2: of the Conservative Party, the Conservative Party post World War Two,
Speaker 2: it was the party of the mixed economy. It was
Speaker 2: a party of compromise. It was a party that accepted
Speaker 2: socialism in vast part of the economy. I just wanted
Speaker 2: to do us like you better job. But it was
Speaker 2: a bit of a road party, it was. It was
Speaker 2: not a party committed to any kind of real principles.
Speaker 2: It was them and the Labor Party, and the differences
Speaker 2: were minor. The differences between the two political parties. Parties
Speaker 2: were relatively minor. H there were forming of the Conservative
Speaker 2: Party that was influenced by the very early think tanks
Speaker 2: that were being established at the time, including the Institute
Speaker 2: for Economic Affairs, was challenging of kind of the post
Speaker 2: World War to consensus of the mixed economy, of state
Speaker 2: intervention and of a large welfare state. So so they
Speaker 2: were they were aligned much more with a small government,
Speaker 2: limited government, reduced offastan, not eliminating it, and reduced role
Speaker 2: for the government in the economy.
Speaker 1: And that is that was her political base. That's who
Speaker 1: she was with. That's who she you know. That was
Speaker 1: the network.
Speaker 2: That was the network she developed during this period of time.
Speaker 2: By nineteen seventy she's no longer a backbencher. By nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy she's a Secretary for Education and Science.
Speaker 1: This was under Edward Heath.
Speaker 2: Edward Heath won in nineteen seventy and appointed her for that. Now,
Speaker 2: Edwards Heath was again a very middle of the road,
Speaker 2: mixed economy, stand for nothing, really a prime minister in
Speaker 2: s such he was a continuation of the failures of
Speaker 2: previous governments. By nineteen seventy four, when the government fell
Speaker 2: and a Labor Party was elected, Britain was in the
Speaker 2: midst of inflation, of unemployment, of recession. Nineteen seventies were
Speaker 2: not a good time in England.
Speaker 1: It was you know, it was a.
Speaker 2: Time of economic contraction, a time of economic failure, and.
Speaker 1: You know, she was part of the government that led
Speaker 1: to that.
Speaker 2: She tried, she tried to engage in in education reforms.
Speaker 2: Many of them were unpopular, but you know, you know,
Speaker 2: she really tried.
Speaker 1: To focus on.
Speaker 2: Quality of education, on increasing the rigor and increasing the
Speaker 2: quality of education. Anyway, in nineteen seventy five there was
Speaker 2: an election for obviously the government failed. There was a
Speaker 2: leadership change and there was election for the leadership of
Speaker 2: the Conservative Party and therefore the leadership of the opposition.
Speaker 2: That was nineteen seventy five, February eleventh, nineteen seventy five,
Speaker 2: Thatcher becomes the leader of the Conservative Party and therefore
Speaker 2: the leader of her of the opposition. And this changed
Speaker 2: the Conservative Party at least then, maybe not so much
Speaker 2: you know later, But then this was the rebellion of
Speaker 2: the reformers. This was the younger generation. These were the
Speaker 2: these were the radicals. These were the people who want
Speaker 2: to change. They were not They did not want to
Speaker 2: settle for the way things had been done, and viewed
Speaker 2: kind of the failures of the Conservative Party in the
Speaker 2: past as a challenge to themselves to kind of change direction.
Speaker 2: So Thatcher represented a real shift, a shift in the
Speaker 2: attitude of the party towards more market orientation, less state
Speaker 2: intervention in the economy, smaller you know, smaller welfist. And
Speaker 2: of course from seventy five to seventy nine, as she
Speaker 2: was in the opposition, things were going worse in England.
Speaker 2: You had rising inflation, industrial unrest, lots of strikes, lots
Speaker 2: of strikes.
Speaker 1: And the Labor Party failing.
Speaker 2: Failing, and this of course created a great opportunity for her.
Speaker 1: It is only the background of people were fed up.
Speaker 2: I think about the nineteen seventies and I think this
Speaker 2: is true of the United States. Nineteen seventies were dark period. Economically,
Speaker 2: things were very bad. Ye know, it was not not
Speaker 2: as bad as the nineteen thirties, but you had inflation.
Speaker 1: People hate inflation, had high unemployment.
Speaker 2: Again, the stagflation, you know, low economic growth and high
Speaker 2: inflation is something the Canes did not anticipate. Keynesian policy
Speaker 2: had dominated British governments since the end of World War Two,
Speaker 2: and people were fed up. You know, the country was
Speaker 2: in industrial decline, economic decline, and cost.
Speaker 1: Of living with skyrocketing.
Speaker 2: You know, in those days people forget this, but I
Speaker 2: kind of remember, and other people maybe who lived in
Speaker 2: London in the nineteen seventies micro called this London was
Speaker 2: a dog place. I mean today I marvel at how
Speaker 2: clean some of the buildings are and they regularly clean them.
Speaker 2: But in those days there was grime in all the buildings.
Speaker 2: It was. It was not a beautiful Today it's a
Speaker 2: beautiful city. It was not a beautiful.
Speaker 1: City and it was a city there was really struggling.
Speaker 2: Again, struggling because of economic decay and economic decline in
Speaker 2: Britain generally was like this. It was and people were
Speaker 2: in a dark mood. And she was the leader of
Speaker 2: the opposition. She had a radical vision. She was an
Speaker 2: unbelievable hard worker. She had a clarity of purpose, you know,
Speaker 2: clarity of what her ideology was, and she was just
Speaker 2: ready for the job. In nineteen seventy nine, in the election,
Speaker 2: the Conservative Party won the general election and on May fourth,
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy nine, Margaret Thatcher becomes Prime Minister. Note that
Speaker 2: this is a year and a half, almost two years
Speaker 2: before Ronald Reagan becomes president, and immediately her guvernment starts
Speaker 2: implementing changes. Their first priority is controlling inflation. To do that,
Speaker 2: they're very much influenced by by Milton Friedman. So they
Speaker 2: are monitorists, and so it means cutting back on government
Speaker 2: printing of money. But it's not enough just to cut
Speaker 2: just the printing of money. They also realize they have
Speaker 2: to cut the size of government, the involvement of government.
Speaker 1: They have to really restructure things.
Speaker 2: One of the main sources of they believe problems in
Speaker 2: economy is the massive power the trade unions of accumulated
Speaker 2: accumulated over the twentieth century. So they immediately get to
Speaker 2: work on reducing the power of the trade unions. This
Speaker 2: is something that margaretach is involved in from nineteen seventy
Speaker 2: nine really until the mid nineteen eighties when she finally
Speaker 2: wins and is dramatically reduced reduced the power of the unions.
Speaker 2: So you know immediately she is focused on economic liberalization.
Speaker 2: Let me let me just once, let me skip my
Speaker 2: head here for something. Say, I have notes and they're
Speaker 2: not very organized, all right, So if you think about
Speaker 2: economic reforms, is that Margaret Thatcher puts in place so
Speaker 2: first tech control of the money supply to coup inflation. Indeed,
Speaker 2: inflation goes from eighteen percent eighteen percent in nineteen seventy
Speaker 2: nine to five percent under five percent in nineteen eighty three.
Speaker 2: During this period, interest rate shoot up and unemployment goes
Speaker 2: through the roof and then starts going down. She engages
Speaker 2: a tax reform in nineteen seventy nine. One of the
Speaker 2: first things she does is lower the top income text
Speaker 2: rate from about eighty three percent eighty three percent.
Speaker 1: To sixty percent.
Speaker 2: Ultimately it's brought down to forty percent in nineteen eighty eight,
Speaker 2: she increases the VAT, so she's moving away from income
Speaker 2: taxation and more towards sales taxes.
Speaker 1: Now I wish she'd gone all the way.
Speaker 2: Ideally, you lower the income text to zero and you
Speaker 2: raise the VAT to generate revenue, even if you have
Speaker 2: to go to twenty five thirty percent. But yes, rely
Speaker 2: less on taxing income, taxing work, taxing profits, taxing capital gains,
Speaker 2: Taching's investment, and moved towards taxing consumption. So that was
Speaker 2: increased from eight percent to fifteen percent in nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 2: Corporate taxes were lowered, and then she started putting controls
Speaker 2: overblic public spending, reduced subsidies to state industries and local governments,
Speaker 2: and stricter rules and welfare eligibility. So start shrinking government slowly.
Speaker 2: So those are the films and and look, nobody was
Speaker 2: happy about these reforms. Unemployment went up in the early
Speaker 2: days and inflation was going through the roof, So that
Speaker 2: was that was a real worry.
Speaker 1: It was people were struggling.
Speaker 2: People were skeptical at first about what she was doing.
Speaker 2: And you know, elections were coming up in the in
Speaker 2: the mid nineteen eighties, and you know, the reality is
Speaker 2: that the Conservative Party was very unpopular, and.
Speaker 1: Really what saved her was.
Speaker 2: The one the Falklands, you know, the Falklands, these islands
Speaker 2: in in uh the Atlantic Ocean off the coast, you know,
Speaker 2: quite quite far off the coast of Argentina that Argentina
Speaker 2: claim as some claim over in its history and it's past.
Speaker 2: And Argentina basically invaded to suppose you reclaimed this is.
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty two, and it could have been.
Speaker 2: Very easy for Thatch, you anybody else to basically said, oh, look,
Speaker 2: you know, yeah, okay, let's negotiate or something. Argentina had
Speaker 2: long claimed sovereignty. They'd argued that the islands were taken
Speaker 2: by Britain in eighteen thirty three and looked us as
Speaker 2: eight thousand miles from London. The British Empire was already gone.
Speaker 2: What's the point. Well Thatcher didn't take that approach, and
Speaker 2: her view was, no, you know, we will defend these islands.
Speaker 2: The invasion was a surprise. It was April second, nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty two. Argentina forces invaded, occupied the islands, overwhelmed the
Speaker 2: small British garrison there was there Thatcher's response was, we
Speaker 2: have ceased to be a nation and retreat again. This
Speaker 2: is after decades of the UK just just becoming smaller
Speaker 2: and smaller, the you know, shedding, shedding its colonies and
Speaker 2: its empire and just becoming a weaker and smaller and insignificant.
Speaker 2: Natia I think, I think the self esteem of Brits
Speaker 2: when it came to kind of the nation and what
Speaker 2: the nation could do at a very low point, and
Speaker 2: she was like, we're now retreating, We're going after them.
Speaker 2: Within hours of the invasion, she convened her war cabinet
Speaker 2: decided to send a naval task force one hundred plus ships,
Speaker 2: twenty seven thousand troops eight thousand miles to retake the islands.
Speaker 2: The decision exemplified what Thatcher was about right in her
Speaker 2: public image. She was quick, bold and willing to take risks.
Speaker 2: A lot of people thought this was suicide. Just the
Speaker 2: logistics of managing a war from three thousand miles away
Speaker 2: would kill it. Thatcher's argument was, the Falklands are British,
Speaker 2: they must be freed. Nobody's going to just take it
Speaker 2: away from us.
Speaker 1: And of course the war was won. Between April and June.
Speaker 2: British forces slowly recaptured the island, first South Jeoji, which
Speaker 2: is April twenty fifth, pretty quickly, and by June fourteenth
Speaker 2: Argentinian forces surrendered. The total war lasted seventy four days and.
Speaker 1: Regained control of the islands.
Speaker 2: This had a you know, two hundred and fifty five
Speaker 2: British and six hundred and forty nine Argentinians soldiers died
Speaker 2: as part of it, but overall the victory was considered swift, total,
Speaker 2: incredibly symbolic. And that's just popularity went from twenty five
Speaker 2: percent before. Remember, high unemployment, high interest rates, economy struggling,
Speaker 2: inflation almost not quite killed yet the reforms were holding reforms.
Speaker 1: It was struggling with the reforms.
Speaker 2: Twenty five percent over sixty. She's gained this aura of
Speaker 2: decisiveness and British confidence and we can do stuff. And
Speaker 2: as a conseqt with her that she called an early
Speaker 2: election in nineteen eighty three and she won in a landslide.
Speaker 2: She declared, Britain found herself again in the South Atlantic
Speaker 2: and will not look back from the victory she has won.
Speaker 2: So put aside the importance of the Folkland island. They're
Speaker 2: probably not that importance. The importance here was to morale.
Speaker 2: The importance here was to kind of the sense the
Speaker 2: patriotism and the confidence the Brits gained in their own government,
Speaker 2: in their prime minister, in Morga Thatcher. So what really
Speaker 2: happened then was it just gave her a boost to
Speaker 2: do so much more so, you know, I'd say, up
Speaker 2: until nineteen eighty two eighty three, much of what she
Speaker 2: had done was pretty standard stuff that you would do
Speaker 2: to to defeat inflation. It wasn't particularly radical, it wasn't big.
Speaker 2: It was important, it needed to be done. But a
Speaker 2: lot of the radical stuff happens after nineteen eighty three,
Speaker 2: after her Lanchlide victory, after the Falkland victory.
Speaker 1: So starting with privatization.
Speaker 2: In nineteen eighty four, British telecomis privatized, British gas in
Speaker 2: eighty six, British Airways in eighty seven, but it's still
Speaker 2: in eighty eight, Alexristine, what are utilities are privatized in
Speaker 2: the late nineteen eighties. Council housing people are giving given
Speaker 2: the right Council housing is like public housing, government housing,
Speaker 2: and people are There's a right to buy program that
Speaker 2: is passed by Parliament which allows the resident in the
Speaker 2: public housing to buy the housing at a reasonable price.
Speaker 2: Million people ultimately no sorry, yeah, a million people gain
Speaker 2: home ownership as a consequence of this, right over a
Speaker 2: million people by nineteen ninety, just by nineteen ninety.
Speaker 1: So this was huge. The housing reformed.
Speaker 2: Now the housing reform is actually in nineteen eighty, but
Speaker 2: you know, people benefited throughout. Privatization ultimately raised billions in revenue,
Speaker 2: which the Brits needed in order to pay back of Dad.
Speaker 1: But it was.
Speaker 2: A it really led to a wave of privatization. We'll
Speaker 2: get we'll get to this in the global influence, a
Speaker 2: wave of privatization throughout the world. She had this profound
Speaker 2: impact on other countries, including many including Eastern European countries
Speaker 2: in the nineties, but certainly Third World countries that were
Speaker 2: beginning to liberalize by million Asia, and part of that
Speaker 2: was through privatization. Britain was the model. She just started
Speaker 2: to take on the unions in more aggressive fashion. While
Speaker 2: she had started in nineteen eighty and there were picketing
Speaker 2: and strikes against her, and this was part of her
Speaker 2: lack of popularity going into the Falkland War. She continued
Speaker 2: that She doubled up on this in nineteen eighty four
Speaker 2: with the Trade Union Act, which required secret ballid before strikes,
Speaker 2: the Employment Act of nineteen eighty eight, which curtailed union
Speaker 2: immunities and legal disputes, and then the big confrontation with
Speaker 2: a minus strike. She was closing down a coal mines
Speaker 2: and there was a massive minus strike nineteen eighty four
Speaker 2: to nineteen eighty five. It lasted a year and it
Speaker 2: basically broke the unions and they've never really recovered. It
Speaker 2: broke the political dominance. Unions basically controlled British industry. They
Speaker 2: colled British politics. The threat of strikes was something that
Speaker 2: intimidated every politician, and she stood firm she would not
Speaker 2: let the strike.
Speaker 1: Change your policies.
Speaker 2: After this, number of strikes fell, industrial disputes fell, and
Speaker 2: union's lost influence. And of course, when you allow labor
Speaker 2: markets to be more flexible, when unions lose power, productivity
Speaker 2: goes up, wealth creation goes up. It's one of the
Speaker 2: secrets to success is get flexible labor markets. She just
Speaker 2: engage with massive deregulation. One of the biggest things was
Speaker 2: what's called the Big Bang of nineteen eighty six. Which
Speaker 2: was sweeping deregulation of the financial industry and the London
Speaker 2: Stock Exchange got rid of fixed commission rates, allowed for
Speaker 2: an ownership of member firms in the Stock Exchange, introduced
Speaker 2: electronic trading, basically the Big Bang, together with banking reforms
Speaker 2: and other nange reforms in the mid nineteen eighties turned London.
Speaker 1: To what it is today.
Speaker 2: You know, maybe it's losing its edge today, but what
Speaker 2: it was up until recently, which was basically one of
Speaker 2: the leading, maybe second only to New York financial centers
Speaker 2: in the world. It shifted Britain from a industry an
Speaker 2: economy based on heavy industry to an economy based on
Speaker 2: services where finance played a big, big role in that.
Speaker 2: So this was a major, you know, a major transformation.
Speaker 2: London really becomes a hub. And this is part of
Speaker 2: when London is studying to generate and almost revenues and
Speaker 2: the city gets built up, all the skyscrapers in the
Speaker 2: city and funds available to clean London up, and you know,
Speaker 2: a lot of.
Speaker 1: Good things, I guess a lot of good things happen.
Speaker 2: She reforms the public sector and civil services, making government
Speaker 2: more efficient, more business like, to the extent that you
Speaker 2: can do that, you know, reduced the kind of entrenched
Speaker 2: nature of British bureaucracy.
Speaker 1: And then you.
Speaker 2: Know, with the Falkland Wars. With the Folkland War, she
Speaker 2: establishes Britain as strong. From policy wise, she's very much
Speaker 2: aligned with Ronald Reagan in standing up to the Soviets.
Speaker 1: Very much, you know.
Speaker 2: Aligned with Reagan and deploying nuclear missiles in Europe.
Speaker 1: Interestingly, while she supports a single.
Speaker 2: European market, she supports the idea of free movement of labor, capital.
Speaker 1: And goods.
Speaker 2: Margatucha is the first Euroskeptic in the sense of she's
Speaker 2: very very reluctant about further integration with Europe.
Speaker 1: She's worried about.
Speaker 2: Taking on regulatory burden of Europe, you know, regulating from Europe.
Speaker 2: I mean, she's she's a deregulator and then to go
Speaker 2: and ask Europe to regulate you that goes against everything
Speaker 2: she believes in. So she would have never gotten Great Britain,
Speaker 2: as you know, immersed in Europe, as you know, Great
Speaker 2: Britain became, and if they would have never been a
Speaker 2: need for Brexit if they had listened to her, you know,
Speaker 2: they she chooses an actual curriculum, you know, and again
Speaker 2: not a radical when it came to privatizing education or
Speaker 2: anything like that, or eliminating in the welfare state, again
Speaker 2: shrinking it, making it harder to get welfare, but not
Speaker 2: in a big way, not in dramatic fashion, at least
Speaker 2: not by nineteen ninety. Who knows what would have happened
Speaker 2: if she had, if she had continued after that. Ultimately,
Speaker 2: what Thatcher was about, what is shifting Britain which had
Speaker 2: become a socialist hellhole, a dying country. I mean, I
Speaker 2: Ran wrote about England, about the brain drain and all
Speaker 2: the all the smart people leaving England and moving to
Speaker 2: the United States. It was a dying place, dying place,
Speaker 2: and she shifted it towards a market economy, which it
Speaker 2: has been, you know, again a mixed economy, but a
Speaker 2: mixed economy in nineteen seventies dominated by socialism. It shifted
Speaker 2: to mixed economy dominated by markets, and that's lasted and
Speaker 2: you know until recently until today maybe arguably, and it's
Speaker 2: shifting away from that, just as it is in the
Speaker 2: United States.
Speaker 1: I mean.
Speaker 2: And what she did was created massive prosperity. I mean,
Speaker 2: England became a much wealthier place. Again, I'd say since
Speaker 2: the financial crisis that prosperity has been in decline or
Speaker 2: at least growing at a very very slow rate. But
Speaker 2: the economic boom of the eighties and nineties and two thousands,
Speaker 2: although we have to financial crisis, that is all thatcher.
Speaker 1: That is all thatcher. The relative wealth that.
Speaker 2: Is represented by London in particularities all over England is.
Speaker 1: It's thatture. It would have never happened.
Speaker 2: Without a the regular Conservative Party would have never been
Speaker 2: able to make it happen.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 2: Now, in nineteen ninety there were a few things that
Speaker 2: ultimately led to her, you know, having having to who
Speaker 2: resigning whatever initiatives.
Speaker 1: Was something called the poll tax.
Speaker 2: The poll tax was a was a.
Speaker 1: Replacement for the property taxes.
Speaker 2: So it was it was meant to fund local governments
Speaker 2: and replace property taxes with a flat tax. Everybody paid,
Speaker 2: Every adult paid exactly the same amount, and you got
Speaker 2: tax based on how many adults.
Speaker 1: Every adult paid a particular amount of money.
Speaker 2: And this was supposed to fund local government. Now, uh,
Speaker 2: this faced huge opposition, right, This was a proposal way
Speaker 2: ahead of its time in many respects, right, because.
Speaker 1: The reality was that this is this is not progressive.
Speaker 2: Whereas a property tax you paid more so that the
Speaker 2: gal has the mansion pays a lot more than the
Speaker 2: person who's struggling to make a living and living in
Speaker 2: a small apartment, a poll tax everybody pays the same.
Speaker 2: The aristocrat who has a title and maybe has a
Speaker 2: castle somewhere, and the common work up.
Speaker 1: Pay exactly the same.
Speaker 2: The politext was originally introduced in Scotland with a lot
Speaker 2: of resistance. It then was expanded to the rest of
Speaker 2: the UK. Many many people refused to pay it. There
Speaker 2: were massive protests. There was a poll text riot in
Speaker 2: London in March of nineteen ninety and Pole showed her
Speaker 2: becoming less and less popular and Conservatives generally Conservative popularity
Speaker 2: Conservative Party plummeted.
Speaker 1: Even loyal Conservatives were opposed.
Speaker 2: To this, but she was stubborn and she insisted on
Speaker 2: doing it, and she ran with it, and this alienated
Speaker 2: her for many people within the Conservative Party and many
Speaker 2: people in the public. She also was drifting away from
Speaker 2: the rest of the Consertive Party. On Europe, many in
Speaker 2: the Conserti Party were eager for much greater.
Speaker 1: Integration with the European Union. She warned against it.
Speaker 2: Indeed, in nineteen ninety she delivered a famous Commons outburst.
Speaker 1: I guess where she.
Speaker 2: Said, no, no, no, as only Morgatacher could say, rejecting
Speaker 2: any further European integration. As a consequence of that, her
Speaker 2: found secretary, who was a longtime ally, resigned on thirteenth
Speaker 2: of November nineteen ninety, accusing her of undermining colleagues and
Speaker 2: isolating Britain in Europe. And the fact that Howe was
Speaker 2: willing to leave and to give a scathing speech, very
Speaker 2: anti thatch of speech, a galvanized opposition to her, an
Speaker 2: ultimately galvanized opposition to people too willing to challenge her
Speaker 2: in a leadership position. Michael hezel Time, who will be
Speaker 2: remembered any think, for you know, bringing about that is
Speaker 2: resignation more than anything else that he did in life.
Speaker 2: He was charismatic, ambitious, and a long time rival of her,
Speaker 2: actually challenged her for party leadership.
Speaker 1: In the first ballot, she won.
Speaker 2: Two hundred and four to one hundred and fifty two,
Speaker 2: but not enough to reach the requirement for an outright victory.
Speaker 1: Which I think is twos or thirds or something like that.
Speaker 2: It required a second ballot, and people close to her
Speaker 2: were convinced she would now win a second ballot, and
Speaker 2: as a consequence, she resigned on November twenty second, nineteen ninety,
Speaker 2: after serving eleven years as Prime Minister, the longest continuous
Speaker 2: premiership of the twentieth century. So the first woman and
Speaker 2: the longest premiership of the twentieth century was Margaret Thatcher
Speaker 2: eleven years. So you know, the poll tax made him
Speaker 2: unpopular Europe, made it unpopular within the within the party,
Speaker 2: and people resented her personal style. She was tough, she
Speaker 2: was autocratic, and she was very isolated. At the end
Speaker 2: of the day, she stuck to her principles. And while
Speaker 2: everybody's excited about kind of free market reforms and moving
Speaker 2: towards as the phone set in and the economy was
Speaker 2: doing well and everything was going fine, a lot of
Speaker 2: people in the consertive body said, Okay, enough, enough is enough? Right,
Speaker 2: people like us, We've done good, the economy is growing.
Speaker 2: Why continue?
Speaker 1: See what? For her this was ideological. She had a
Speaker 1: deep belief in.
Speaker 2: Markets, not free markets as I would want, but in
Speaker 2: more markets, in limited government, in personal responsibility. I think
Speaker 2: if she'd stayed, she would have wanted and she would
Speaker 2: have been eager to reform the office state, although I
Speaker 2: doubt she would have touched the NHS which needed it.
Speaker 2: She left in November nineteen ninety John Major became a
Speaker 2: succeeded as Prime Minister.
Speaker 1: He was mostly a.
Speaker 2: Nothing Thatcher remained in Parliament until nineteen ninety two as
Speaker 2: a backbencher. When she left Parliament, and she spent the
Speaker 2: rest of her life kind of touring the world and
Speaker 2: giving lectures and talks and attending events. In later years
Speaker 2: she suffered from dementia and she kind of retired from
Speaker 2: public life and she passed away winners at I think
Speaker 2: two thousand and three. But I want to talk about
Speaker 2: just a little bit about her influencers on her Margatacha
Speaker 2: was she herself, I don't think was an intellectual, but
Speaker 2: she surrounded herself or at least was heavily influenced by intellectuals.
Speaker 2: She had read wrote the Swyftem by Hayek at a
Speaker 2: relatively young age, and had read it was reading Hayek throughout.
Speaker 2: She got to meet Hayek when he was at the
Speaker 2: inn Cry of Economic Affairs in London, and no question
Speaker 2: very influenced by him, both in terms of her rhetoric,
Speaker 2: and in terms of her beliefs. She again didn't go
Speaker 2: all out with Hyek's programs, but what she did do
Speaker 2: was definitely inspired by him. At some point in the
Speaker 2: late nineteen seven she, you know, in a meeting of
Speaker 2: the Conservative Party, she took his book on the Constitution
Speaker 2: of Liberty, slammed it on the table and said, this
Speaker 2: is what the Conservative Party is about. Right, So she
Speaker 2: was very sorry twenty thirteen, two thousand and three, I missbooks.
Speaker 2: She died in twenty thirteen, but after she had not
Speaker 2: been in public for quite a while because of her health.
Speaker 1: So she was very intellectual in accidence. She was always
Speaker 1: also very close to her man.
Speaker 2: Was this second named Keith Joseph. Keith Joseph, also inspired
Speaker 2: by Hayek, and Keith and Margitachi actually formed a think
Speaker 2: tank in the mid nineteen seventies, and again they were
Speaker 2: also very involved with the Institute of Economic Influence, with
Speaker 2: the Institute for Economic Affairs A Keith don't remember the
Speaker 2: Conservative of a Party a kind of a he was
Speaker 2: called the mad Monk, the mad Monk, mad because he
Speaker 2: was considered radical, a radical for free markets, and a
Speaker 2: monk because he had kind of the temperament of a monk,
Speaker 2: very intellectual, very ideological, real an ideologue. And Keith Joseph
Speaker 2: was somebody who if he wanted to, and he had
Speaker 2: the temperament for it, could have been prime minister.
Speaker 1: He probably would have led the Concerted Party, but he
Speaker 1: he he.
Speaker 2: Walked away from that and wanted Magatauchi to have it
Speaker 2: because his view, you know, this was not the right
Speaker 2: goal for him. He was not a political leader. His
Speaker 2: key intellectual influencers were Hayak Friedman and members of the
Speaker 2: Austrian and Chicago School of Economics, which he read extensively.
Speaker 2: He was very friendly with Thatcher while she was a
Speaker 2: back bencher, but particularly in the nineteen seventies that she
Speaker 2: became more prominent, and particularly as she prepared as head
Speaker 2: of the opposition to become Prime minister one day. She
Speaker 2: was heavily influenced by him, and his approach was, look,
Speaker 2: the number one enemy we have.
Speaker 1: To deal with immediately politically is inflation.
Speaker 2: But he's famous for a speech that he gave saying
Speaker 2: monetarism is not enough in order to kill inflation. It's
Speaker 2: not enough to stop putting money. What we also need
Speaker 2: to do is reform government. Shrink government, privatize, break the unions,
Speaker 2: all the things that Margaret Thatcher ultimately do. He gave
Speaker 2: two famous speeches in the nineteen seventies, one in seventy six,
Speaker 2: both in seventy six, one in April, one in October.
Speaker 1: Monetarism is not enough.
Speaker 2: We articulate a governing program of how to defeat inflation
Speaker 2: in a sustainable way by restructuring governments, by shrinking, by
Speaker 2: by starting to pin money, but also by restructuring government.
Speaker 2: And then a second speech was stranded in the in
Speaker 2: the middle ground, where he attacked kind of the middle ground.
Speaker 2: The neither here nor their attitude of the Conservative Party,
Speaker 2: this idea that they didn't stand for anything.
Speaker 1: This is just a quote from his speech.
Speaker 2: Instead of seeking from a ground, we have insisted against
Speaker 2: the evidence on staying on the middle ground of consensus
Speaker 2: politics of incremental reform, where we neither confront fully the
Speaker 2: expansion of the state nor offer alternative.
Speaker 1: We remained stranded on the middle ground.
Speaker 2: He says conservatives should not aim to return to the
Speaker 2: status quo, but seek out the common ground based on
Speaker 2: the individual, initiative, enterprise, and the framework of freedom, rather
Speaker 2: than further bureaucratic control. We must move away from the
Speaker 2: merrily managed, manageable towards the necessary, from preservation to reform.
Speaker 2: So he was the guy who really came up with
Speaker 2: the reform plan. He was the guy behind the scene
Speaker 2: who structured the reforms that Margaret Thatcher engaged in. He
Speaker 2: was the intellectual in the background, but not just he
Speaker 2: was a politician and intellectual.
Speaker 1: He was involved in politics.
Speaker 2: He was part of the conservative movement, Conservative Party, but
Speaker 2: he was in the back.
Speaker 1: Okay. I thought i'd add with some juicy quotes from Thatcher.
Speaker 2: She was some kind of representative. Quotes from her speeches
Speaker 2: and interviews. Here's one for nineteen eighty seven where she says,
Speaker 2: there's no such thing as society. There are individual men
Speaker 2: and women, and there are families. Now if you take
Speaker 2: out the ending, and there are families, which is a
Speaker 2: reflection of her conservative I think leanings and conservative and
Speaker 2: maybe religious upbringing. There's no such thing a society. There
Speaker 2: are individual men and women. Is straight out of Iinrand, right.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's perfect. From nineteen seventy nine the Conservative
Speaker 2: Party Conference, she says pennies don't fall from heaven.
Speaker 1: They have to be earned. Que on oath.
Speaker 2: Imagine a politician saying anything like this today in nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty you cannot spend your way out of her session
Speaker 2: or borrow your way out of debt. That's anti Canes
Speaker 2: or a famous nineteen seventy six. This is in nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy six. So this is just as she's become the
Speaker 2: head of the Conservative Party. The problem with socialism is
Speaker 2: that you eventually run out of other people's money, one
Speaker 2: of the many problems of socialism. She also said, I
Speaker 2: do not know anyone who got to the top without
Speaker 2: hard work. That is a recipe. It will not always
Speaker 2: get you to the top, but you'd get you pretty near. No,
Speaker 2: it would remember the good Samaritan, if he only had
Speaker 2: good intentions, he had money as well. About government and
Speaker 2: freedom in nineteen eighty three to the House of Commons,
Speaker 2: the state has no source of money other than the
Speaker 2: money people earn themselves. A obvious truth that everybody wants
Speaker 2: to deny.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: It is not the creation of wealth that is wrong, right,
Speaker 2: but the love of money for its own sake. That's
Speaker 2: you know, that's her biblical that's going back to her
Speaker 2: biblical roots.
Speaker 1: Right. There's nothing wrong with the love of Money.
Speaker 2: Seventy nine election campaign statement, plan to reduce the role
Speaker 2: of government, not to increase it. Speech in nineteen eighty one.
Speaker 2: You may have to fight a battle more than once
Speaker 2: to win it. This is she told the opposition in
Speaker 2: the mid nineteen eighties. If you want to cut your
Speaker 2: own throat, don't come to me for bandage. If you've
Speaker 2: watched any of his speeches, you'll be amazed by how
Speaker 2: articulate she was, particularly compared to politicians today. Here's one
Speaker 2: about character. Look at a day when you are supremely
Speaker 2: satisfied at the end.
Speaker 1: It's not a.
Speaker 2: Day when you lounge around doing nothing. It's when you've
Speaker 2: had everything to do and you've done it. In nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty two, in a speech, she writs, standing in the
Speaker 2: middle of the road is very dangerous. You get knocked
Speaker 2: down by the traffic from both sides. That's about being
Speaker 2: in the middle right, not taking a stand. I am
Speaker 2: extraordinarily patient provided I get my own way in the end.
Speaker 2: What's your thoughts for? They will become actions. What's your
Speaker 2: actions for? They'll become character. What's your character for? It
Speaker 2: becomes your destiny. I think that's good.
Speaker 1: I think that's true, She said, I'm not a consensus politician.
Speaker 1: I'm a conviction politician.
Speaker 2: That's at the seventy nine Concilico convention before she becomes
Speaker 2: my minister.
Speaker 1: Being powerful is like being a lady.
Speaker 2: If you have to tell people you are you aren't,
Speaker 2: it's pretty good.
Speaker 1: This is you know.
Speaker 2: People attacked U in nineteen eighty at her party's conference
Speaker 2: because of her economic reforms, and she said to them,
Speaker 2: you turn if you want to. The lady is not
Speaker 2: for turning. She said, there can be no liberty and
Speaker 2: list of his economic liberty. All right, what else, let's see,
Speaker 2: she said, you know, during the during the nineteen eighties,
Speaker 2: I don't mind how much my minister's talk this is
Speaker 2: to depress and others, as long as they do what
Speaker 2: I say. She said of her critics and fall and
Speaker 2: policy in the mid nineteen eighties, I seem to smell
Speaker 2: the stench of appeasement in the air.
Speaker 1: She said.
Speaker 2: You don't follow the crowd, you lead it. She said
Speaker 2: in an interview in nineteen eighty one, this is a
Speaker 2: good one. Economics of the method. The object is to
Speaker 2: change the soul. It's an interesting perspective. You change the
Speaker 2: economic system. People's people's whole valuesms, their soul changes. She said,
Speaker 2: choice is the essence of ethics. If there were no choice,
Speaker 2: there would be no good and evil. That's absolutely true.
Speaker 2: It seems like a no brainer, but so many people
Speaker 2: think they could have no free will and morality at
Speaker 2: the same time. Disciplining oneself to do what one knows
Speaker 2: is right and important, although difficult, is the high road
Speaker 2: to pride, self esteem, and personal satisfaction. Pride is a
Speaker 2: virtue here self esteem. I mean, she had a certain
Speaker 2: morality is duty that came from her religiosity, I think.
Speaker 1: But she was a.
Speaker 2: Very this worldly woman, and you know, she had a
Speaker 2: lot of very very good I mean, her drive for
Speaker 2: liberty and freedom was was driven primarily by her view
Speaker 2: of people being responsible for their own lives and and
Speaker 2: and being provided with it or being provided with the
Speaker 2: liberty and to be able to exercise that responsibility. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean she combined in her speeches Marsten t. I
Speaker 2: mean again, there's a lot of duty. There's a lot
Speaker 2: of duty in that morality, and a lot of but
Speaker 2: there's a lot of self alliance. So a combination of
Speaker 2: duty and self reliance which you sometimes get in religion.
Speaker 2: She was an economic realist, a free marketer. But but
Speaker 2: she she had a clear idea of what was possible
Speaker 2: and what was not in terms of getting her reforms across.
Speaker 2: She she was definitely for some money and physical restraint
Speaker 2: and government spending restraint. She had clear political resolve. She
Speaker 2: was no compromise of socialism. She despised socialism, and she
Speaker 2: had a vision of freedom grounded in the individual individualism.
Speaker 2: I like that quote about there's no such thing as society,
Speaker 2: only individual men and women.
Speaker 1: That's exactly what she was.
Speaker 2: I mean, at the end of the day, I think
Speaker 2: Margaret Thatcher was the towering political figure of the late
Speaker 2: twentieth century.
Speaker 1: I think she's bigger than Reagan.
Speaker 2: She faced bigger challenges than Reagan because England was in
Speaker 2: worse shape than America. She had to turn it around
Speaker 2: more dramatically, and she did. Reagan benefited from a lot
Speaker 2: of the deregulation that already started under primarily Jimmy Carter,
Speaker 2: a little bit under Joe Ford. And of course politics
Speaker 2: in America is very different in terms of in terms
Speaker 2: of you know, a different relationship with Parliament. Thatcher had
Speaker 2: a fire for everything. She got all the time. You couldn't.
Speaker 2: It's not like you're elected president. You got four years,
Speaker 2: you could lose, you could be you could be kicked
Speaker 2: out at any point as a prime minister, and she
Speaker 2: had a fight for everything that shows a real believer
Speaker 2: in in in you know, markets, not not again les
Speaker 2: fake capitalism, but as close as any politician has come
Speaker 2: to markets, any politician in a in a Meiji economy.
Speaker 2: She completely as I said before, she completely changed England,
Speaker 2: but her legacy with international and in the nineties she
Speaker 2: spent a lot of her time traveling, for example, in
Speaker 2: the after the fall of Building Wall, to Eastern European
Speaker 2: countries encouraging the encouraging them to follow her kind of
Speaker 2: privatization program that she had instituted in England in nineteen eighties,
Speaker 2: and a lot of people in the Czech Republic and
Speaker 2: elsewhere credited her for kind of ouraging them to orient
Speaker 2: the economies towards markets and away from socialism. I think
Speaker 2: she did the same thing in Asia. I think the
Speaker 2: South Koreans, the Taiwanese, the Asian Tigers were hugely inspired
Speaker 2: by the British model, hugely inspired by Margaret Thatcher and
Speaker 2: what she had achieved, and she had a powerful character.
Speaker 2: She people understood. This was a woman of principle. Again,
Speaker 2: I don't agree with everything she said. I don't agree
Speaker 2: with all the principles, and she compromised even more than
Speaker 2: I would have liked. But compared to any other politician
Speaker 2: in the late twentieth century, certainly since Churchill, I think
Speaker 2: she was a giant. She was a giant, and there's
Speaker 2: nobody in British politics. There's nobody in American politics that
Speaker 2: comes anywhere close to her, and it comes anywhere close
Speaker 2: to the kind of influence she had. Yeah, so happy birthday,
Speaker 2: Marga Thatcher. We can all hope that sometime in our future,
Speaker 2: in the next decade or so, there will be another
Speaker 2: generation of politicians like you. I hope that's possible. We
Speaker 2: certainly need it. We're going through our own nineteen seventies
Speaker 2: right now. We need a generation of reformers, a generation
Speaker 2: it's willing to challenge the status quo.
Speaker 1: A generation is willing to.
Speaker 2: Move a political dialogue towards greater liberty, not away from liberty.
Speaker 2: And yeah, we need Amarga Thatcher. There's absolutely no question
Speaker 2: about that. All right, That is what I have to say,
Speaker 2: at least as of right now, we are going to
Speaker 2: take a look and say, let me just do something here,
Speaker 2: take a look at what questions you have.
Speaker 1: I know. Whoops, that's not what I wanted. Once again,
Speaker 1: give me a second.
Speaker 2: Here, No, no, yeah, there it is okay.
Speaker 1: All right, let's see the dum And.
Speaker 2: By the way, politically, she got lucky because if Argentina
Speaker 2: doesn't invade the Falkland Islands in nineteen eighty two, it's
Speaker 2: not clear she survives to do all the amazing things
Speaker 2: she did dur in the nineteen eighties. It was that
Speaker 2: victory and her ability to stand up to the Argentinians
Speaker 2: and win that led to the landslide victory that made
Speaker 2: possible the privatizations. There were forms, I mean, the deregulation
Speaker 2: of the railroads and partial privatization of the railroads. All
Speaker 2: of that could have never happened without the Falklands. So
Speaker 2: sometimes in politics, as in life, you got to get
Speaker 2: a little lucky too.
Speaker 1: You got to get a little lucky. All right, let's see,
Speaker 1: let's go to a super chance and let's see Richard
Speaker 1: is here with us.
Speaker 2: By the way, we're this closed our first hour goal,
Speaker 2: which we've already done the first hour so we're just
Speaker 2: eleven dollars short of that goal, so please consider doing that.
Speaker 2: You know, stickers are welcome. That's when you don't ask
Speaker 2: a question, you just provide financial support.
Speaker 1: That is great.
Speaker 2: Stephen Harper, for example, thank you, Steven did a sticker
Speaker 2: earlier on. You know, super Chat is even better because
Speaker 2: you get to ask a question and I get to
Speaker 2: answer it. You provide content to the show that way,
Speaker 2: So please please consider asking questions. We've got a few
Speaker 2: questions that win take, but few fee to jump in
Speaker 2: with more questions. So we have stickers and we have
Speaker 2: super Chet questions.
Speaker 1: All right, let's see Richard one hundred dollars. Thank you, Richard.
Speaker 2: Thatcher deserves credit for the liberalization of Eastern Europe yep,
Speaker 2: that's what I said, and subsequent economic boom of the nineties,
Speaker 2: and for stopping the decline of the UK.
Speaker 1: Well, not just stopping the decline, but.
Speaker 2: Changing the slope to an upward slope where the UK
Speaker 2: became significantly richer, inspiring a role model and a fierce
Speaker 2: warrior for liberty.
Speaker 1: Not an objective, it's but a fellow traveler thoughts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, absolutely as close as any again. Twentieth century
Speaker 2: later twentieth century politician came to being a fellow traveler.
Speaker 1: And what you did in the UK.
Speaker 2: I didn't and objectives couldn't have done it because he
Speaker 2: wouldn't have got elected.
Speaker 1: She could get elected.
Speaker 2: Because she wasn't you know, she wasn't a lusific capitalist.
Speaker 2: She could get elected and implement amazing things, move us
Speaker 2: in an incredible positive direction. And as you say Eastern Europe,
Speaker 2: I would also give a credit for Southeast Asia, and
Speaker 2: of course for even for Europe itself. I mean nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty so the French elect a socialist president Mitterrand, who privatized,
Speaker 2: who nationalized the banking system.
Speaker 1: Just across from England.
Speaker 2: And while he was doing that and the French economy
Speaker 2: was spiraling downwards, Margatache was privatizing like crazy, you know,
Speaker 2: shutting down the unions and inspiring a massive economic boom.
Speaker 2: And Mitturan looked over the channel and could see that
Speaker 2: in Great Britain and even verse course, he reprivatized the
Speaker 2: banking system, and even though he was elected as a
Speaker 2: socialist on a socialist platform, landed up being a market reformer.
Speaker 2: And I think she inspired movements towards market reforms all
Speaker 2: over Europe I mean, it's not accidental that in the
Speaker 2: early nineteen nineties Sweden gives up on its socialist experiment
Speaker 2: and you know, has a debt crisis and moves towards
Speaker 2: liberalizing its economy and moving away from socialism finally, and
Speaker 2: it happens the economy after economy, country after country, And
Speaker 2: much of the inspiration for that was Thatcher and Reagan.
Speaker 2: But Thatcher even more so because she had a bigger
Speaker 2: challenge and she faced a parliamentary system that many other
Speaker 2: countries could relate to because they had the same political system.
Speaker 2: You know, they viewed America as more unique. Thatcher was
Speaker 2: more consistent with the way their economies and their politics worked,
Speaker 2: so she could really inspire them. All right, Wes got
Speaker 2: youa late Do you have any recommendations and sources? And Thatcher,
Speaker 2: I get the impatient. A lot of what's floating around
Speaker 2: is not objective. Yeah, I mean, there's some biographies. I
Speaker 2: don't have one to recommend right now, but to some
Speaker 2: biographies that are probably pretty good. I have to admit
Speaker 2: I used a lot of what I used was chat,
Speaker 2: GPT and check PPT is pretty good. It's pretty good.
Speaker 2: Now I know a lot so I guess the way
Speaker 2: I asked, the questions and the kind of questions I
Speaker 2: asked and where I went was pretty good. I also
Speaker 2: asked chat Gipt not to use Wikipedia, which is generally
Speaker 2: a good principle to have to tell chat Gipt not
Speaker 2: to use Wikipedia because Wikipedia is completely promoted by a
Speaker 2: leftist agenda on pretty much every topic.
Speaker 1: But but uh is uh is uh.
Speaker 2: Is pretty good and on on this uh you can
Speaker 2: also find her books. She wrote three books describing her
Speaker 2: years in as Prime Minister and describing her ideas. But yeah, again,
Speaker 2: I found I found the the.
Speaker 1: A I to be pretty accurate, pretty accurate.
Speaker 2: I asked things like to what because I knew this
Speaker 2: was true, the influence of Hyeche on her, the influence
Speaker 2: of of of Joseph on her?
Speaker 1: I I I.
Speaker 2: Also asked, somebody is if somebody has a question here
Speaker 2: about it once?
Speaker 1: Then uh? Yes.
Speaker 2: Stephen asked any evidence that Thatcher was in any way
Speaker 2: influenced by iron Man and their answer is no, there
Speaker 2: is no evidence, and at least Chachi but he couldn't
Speaker 2: find anything. I also asked about Keith Joseph because I
Speaker 2: thought maybe he was influenced by n Ran Iron Ran
Speaker 2: but we can't find anything that suggests that.
Speaker 1: You know, there were.
Speaker 2: People in that circle around Keith Joseph, and around Hygeche,
Speaker 2: and around the I e. A. And around the Adam
Speaker 2: Smith Institute, which was also an institute that was founded
Speaker 2: early in his her administration and provided a lot of
Speaker 2: the a lot of the policy formula, formulas for what
Speaker 2: what what it should what the concerted party should do. Uh,
Speaker 2: there were they were all familiar with Rand and influenced
Speaker 2: to some extent by iron Ran. But I can't find
Speaker 2: any direct influence or any reason, any reason to believe
Speaker 2: directly that I that either her or Keith Joseph had
Speaker 2: read or referenced Irand directly they might have. Suddenly, Keyth
Speaker 2: Joseph might have, but we don't have any evidence to
Speaker 2: suggest he did. Hayek didn't like Iran, so that could
Speaker 2: have been a negative influence on trying right on on
Speaker 2: on her appeal, on making her appealing. All right, let's see,
Speaker 2: thanks Steven.
Speaker 1: Michael.
Speaker 2: Thatcher and Reagan, despite their flaws, represented a narrow looch
Speaker 2: back to the nineteenth century optimistic, benevolent forward thinking. They
Speaker 2: never appealed to xenophobia and tribalism, to motivate voters.
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: I mean, if you if you see Reagan's speeches, he
Speaker 2: was very pro immigration, very pro American, very optimistic, very positive,
Speaker 2: very forward looking.
Speaker 1: I mean he had other problems and and and so
Speaker 1: did mat in the sense that I had a I
Speaker 1: don't know that.
Speaker 2: A sense of life was that positive and and and you.
Speaker 1: Know, but she had this.
Speaker 2: She projected this real belief in human ability, in in
Speaker 2: in being able to overcome, uh, in the responsibility of
Speaker 2: any individual to make something of their own life. Remember,
Speaker 2: she came from a modest background. Uh again, in compared
Speaker 2: to pretty much every prime minister in in in British history.
Speaker 2: She came from a modest background, and she believed you
Speaker 2: could be successful, you could work hard, and you could achieve.
Speaker 2: She was, She was smart, She had a scientific background,
Speaker 2: rare in politics.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I mean I.
Speaker 2: She had that forward thinking, rational approach, which is rare
Speaker 2: in politics certainly today. And and even in in that sense,
Speaker 2: I think she was better than Again, she was better
Speaker 2: than Reagan.
Speaker 1: She was more thoughtful of Reagan. She was going intellectual
Speaker 1: than Reagan.
Speaker 2: She was far from perfect, but she was better than
Speaker 2: almost anybody else out there. Stephen said, there was a
Speaker 2: movie about her with Meryl Streep. I remember she says
Speaker 2: something like, I will not end up an old lady
Speaker 2: washing a cup in the sink, and that's exactly how
Speaker 2: it ended. It felt like a naturalistic undercut thoughts. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean the movie was very much about her, not
Speaker 2: just a retirement, but laid in her retirement, very much
Speaker 2: about her fading.
Speaker 1: It was very anti romantic.
Speaker 2: And it didn't really emphasize who she was and what
Speaker 2: she had achieved.
Speaker 1: It was somewhat sad the way was presented.
Speaker 2: I don't think a life was sincerely said, but the
Speaker 2: way it was presented, she was dying lady, and it
Speaker 2: didn't come across as that. It was very natural, realistic,
Speaker 2: very I think the whole movie, you know, undercut her character.
Speaker 2: I mean, it wasn't complete. There was some glimpses of
Speaker 2: the character, but it was negatively framed. It was negatively presented,
Speaker 2: and the focus not on her her peak, not on
Speaker 2: her strength, not on when she reshapes the world from
Speaker 2: seventy nine maybe to the late nineties, but decline on
Speaker 2: the health issue she has, on her loneliness when she's
Speaker 2: kind of isolated politically.
Speaker 1: I think that's wrong.
Speaker 2: But look, I mean one of the great tragedies even
Speaker 2: in the UK today is that nobody gives a credit.
Speaker 2: Nobody gives a credit. Almost everybody thinks she was a
Speaker 2: bad influence. Nobody remembers, nobody knows. And it's awful when
Speaker 2: you talk about when you talk to people in the
Speaker 2: UK today who it benefited enormously from Thatchers, from Thatcher's policies,
Speaker 2: and how they despise.
Speaker 1: Her and they hate her and they think badly off her.
Speaker 2: It's really terrible and it's part of the move away
Speaker 2: from markets. Daniel says, can a democratic society exist without capitalism? Well,
Speaker 2: I mean we've got lots of democratic societies and none
Speaker 2: of them have capitalism, are capitalists.
Speaker 1: So I don't think. I don't think democracy is consistent
Speaker 1: with capitalism.
Speaker 2: I mean capitalism is, I understand it, a complete separation
Speaker 2: of state from economics. Capitalism is where the government does
Speaker 2: one thing, protect individual rights and leave you alone. Now,
Speaker 2: you know, there are lots of there been lots of
Speaker 2: socialists countries that are democratics. Sweden in the sixties and seventies,
Speaker 2: Israel in their fifties and.
Speaker 1: Sixties and seventies.
Speaker 2: You know, on and off different countries in Western Europe,
Speaker 2: they've had socialist running them and yet maintain their democracy.
Speaker 2: But democracy is a majority vote, and capitalism cannot run
Speaker 2: on a majority vote. Capitalisms the whole foundation of capitalism
Speaker 2: is the idea of individual rights which are not democratic,
Speaker 2: the idea of sticking to those individual rights that.
Speaker 1: You can't be voted away, and not being a democracy.
Speaker 2: You know, you need a constitutional republic to sustain capitalism.
Speaker 2: Democracy people vote away the rights of others. It's too easy. Oh,
Speaker 2: I mean, here's the important don't think of the world
Speaker 2: today as democracy, as sorry as capitalism. The world today
Speaker 2: is a mixed economy, lots and lots and lots and
Speaker 2: lots and lots.
Speaker 1: Of government interventions and redistribution and some role for markets.
Speaker 1: That's not capitalism.
Speaker 2: That is a mixed economy tilted towards socialism. Capitalism is
Speaker 2: markets and the government there to protect that set.
Speaker 1: Right Oh w I thirty? Yeah, here, Ron, ask your
Speaker 1: super check question at the end of your show and fight.
Speaker 1: I know it's on my laptop.
Speaker 2: It's not on my computer here unless you can recreate
Speaker 2: it in the chat.
Speaker 1: I don't have access to it.
Speaker 2: For some reason. It didn't save it here. I'm not
Speaker 2: even sure it's going to be on my laptop, but
Speaker 2: it might. Can you recreate the question? I'm happy to
Speaker 2: answer it, not in you know, you don't have to
Speaker 2: put money to it, just in the chat. Michael, when
Speaker 2: is your debate on Christianity versus Western Civilization san Francisco?
Speaker 1: And who is your opponent?
Speaker 2: I don't know who my opponent is, but the debate
Speaker 2: is on November twelfth, the date before my debate to
Speaker 2: socialists in Colorado Springs. So November November twelfth in San Francisco.
Speaker 2: More information in the days to come. Jacob, what is
Speaker 2: the minimum amount of time needed for supermajority to make
Speaker 2: sufficient changes to influence the masses to buy into some
Speaker 2: free markets?
Speaker 1: I don't understand that. What is the.
Speaker 2: Minimum amount of time needed for supermajority to make sufficient
Speaker 2: changes to influence the masses? But aren't the masses the superminjoity?
Speaker 1: I don't.
Speaker 2: I don't understand who the masses on who the super
Speaker 2: majority is to buy into some free market? I know
Speaker 2: long term can only be done philosophically. I mean, I
Speaker 2: have no idea. I don't know. I mean I think
Speaker 2: that the mass is generally a willing to be rather
Speaker 2: to accept somebody radical like me Lay when things get really,
Speaker 2: really bad, and then how long it takes for them
Speaker 2: to accept the new system and to buy into it,
Speaker 2: I don't know, And I don't know if they ever do,
Speaker 2: and at the first opportunity they rebel against it and
Speaker 2: shift their loyalty.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: Lay thirty eight says, can you explain in detail y
Speaker 2: Argentina economy went from so good under Malay to now
Speaker 2: getting a bailout from the US. So I've talked about this,
Speaker 2: about this, and first we have to understand that Milay
Speaker 2: can only do certain reforms, and certain reforms he can
Speaker 2: do because he doesn't have parliament. Parliament is against him,
Speaker 2: and in order to stick to constitutional government and to
Speaker 2: stick to the principles, you just can't do it with
Speaker 2: executive orders. Just like you know, we hope the constitution
Speaker 2: will strained Trump. The Argentinian constitution restrains me Lay. So
Speaker 2: a lot of the deregulation, a lot of the privatization,
Speaker 2: a lot of the things that he wanted to do,
Speaker 2: he never could do. Basically, what happened was a loss
Speaker 2: of confidence in a very volatile economy when people lose
Speaker 2: confidence in things getting better. It becomes a self fulfilling
Speaker 2: prophecy because they behave in ways to make things worse.
Speaker 1: In this case, when Milay lost the election.
Speaker 2: The local elections by a margin far greater than anybody expected,
Speaker 2: people lost confidence in his ability, in his ability to
Speaker 2: actually deliver on all his promises and all the reforms necessary.
Speaker 1: And uh so, what they started to do.
Speaker 2: Was basically to sell the local currency uh and and
Speaker 2: and to buy dollars. Whereas before they gained confidence in
Speaker 2: the local currency, they weren't selling it indeed, and they
Speaker 2: were willing to deposit their dollars into the banking system.
Speaker 2: Uh this all got reversed after the election, what is
Speaker 2: it a couple of months ago, and the consequence of
Speaker 2: that was pulling your dollars out of the banks uh
Speaker 2: and and trying to use the pesos, selling the pasos
Speaker 2: to buy dollars. And that caused the pace or the
Speaker 2: value the pace or the collapse to really go down
Speaker 2: a lot, which causes causes inflation.
Speaker 1: I mean, it causes prices to rise.
Speaker 2: It causes people to the value of their wages to
Speaker 2: go down because it can't buy as much, and people
Speaker 2: just to feel insecure, which means less investment, which means
Speaker 2: less hiring, which means less economic progress. Now wa me
Speaker 2: Le was doing was already going to be bumpy. It's
Speaker 2: not just one way it's going to be bumpy, it's
Speaker 2: going to be noisy.
Speaker 1: And then that loss of confidence changed everything. The bailout
Speaker 1: might not be necessary. If mi Lay.
Speaker 2: Wins in October twenty sixth, a week from now, then
Speaker 2: he might not need the bailout because that will completely
Speaker 2: change the sentiment. People will be much more confident in
Speaker 2: his ability to follow up.
Speaker 1: They will have much more confidence in the peso.
Speaker 2: As a consequence, they will stop selling paesos and buying dollars,
Speaker 2: and the peso's value will increase or stabilize at least,
Speaker 2: and then me can go through the rest of the
Speaker 2: forms and he'll do fine. It might be that the
Speaker 2: United States might have to help him buy basically providing
Speaker 2: him with a fund, or basically not providing with the fund.
Speaker 2: I mean, what the US government has said is they're
Speaker 2: willing to buy pesos to stabilize the price. Now, partially
Speaker 2: by just saying they're willing to do it, the price
Speaker 2: is stabilized because people know that if the Paesel declines,
Speaker 2: the government, the US government will buy a bunch of
Speaker 2: it and.
Speaker 1: Put dollars into play.
Speaker 2: The fact that they are willing to do that is
Speaker 2: basically already stabilize the pesel. So I think that if
Speaker 2: Malay does well on the twenty sixth, I think the
Speaker 2: UGent in the economy will do fine, particularly if he
Speaker 2: continues with the reforms, and he probably won't need the
Speaker 2: US government to actually spend any money on this bailout.
Speaker 2: Just having them there might be sufficient. It already, I
Speaker 2: think is sufficient. Hopefully that explains that I don't have
Speaker 2: more detail than that. Maybe at some point we can
Speaker 2: invite one of my Gentinian economists to come on and
Speaker 2: tell us more about what happened and what is about
Speaker 2: to happen.
Speaker 1: Let's see what happens in the election next week. Paul,
Speaker 1: did that cha bring religion to politics the way Reagan do? No? No, no,
Speaker 1: she did not.
Speaker 2: Thatcher was very secular, as British politics is. I mean,
Speaker 2: she might have had a certain religious spirit about her.
Speaker 2: She might have had a attitude towards morality and hard
Speaker 2: work that is partially based on kind of religious duty.
Speaker 2: But she did not talk religion. She did not bring
Speaker 2: religion into politics. I mean generally the UK is much
Speaker 2: more secular than the United States, as is most of Europe.
Speaker 2: So no, she didn't do what Reagan did, and in
Speaker 2: that sense, she didn't do as much harm to the
Speaker 2: conservative movement. She didn't do any harm to conservative movement.
Speaker 2: The Conservative movement did harm to itself by moving away
Speaker 2: from her policies starting in nineteen ninety, starting with her resignations,
Speaker 2: John Major's and onwards. They've never had a prime minister
Speaker 2: that was willing to go back to her ideas.
Speaker 1: Maybe Kemmy Badanock right now, who.
Speaker 2: Runs a conservative movement is more attuned with those ideas.
Speaker 2: I think conservatives have been in a long time. But
Speaker 2: I mean, and Conservatives have had super majorities. They could
Speaker 2: have done whatever they want wanted, and they didn't reform anything,
Speaker 2: and they didn't move towards market economy in any kind
Speaker 2: of way, and they blew completely blew the majorities that
Speaker 2: they had wasted them. If anything, some of those majorities
Speaker 2: passed kind of the environmental regulations that are killing the UK,
Speaker 2: which Thatcher would have objected to. So no, the problem
Speaker 2: with Thatcher is that she was in a sense and
Speaker 2: aberration within her own party, and that she didn't have
Speaker 2: the support within the party that she needed to see continuity.
Speaker 2: All right, guys, thank you to all the super chatters,
Speaker 2: Thank you for your support, Thank you for everybody listening.
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Speaker 1: See you soon, guys. Bye everybody,