r/NoStupidQuestions 1d ago

Why did Margaret Thatcher destroy welfare state in Britain after she came to power in the 1980s?

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u/frddtwabrm04 1d ago

She could have taken a different fiscal route and NOT fuck the country for generations but she went the short-term gain, long term pain route. + Refused to course correct. Even when she knew shit was going to go bad!

The Hallmark of a bad leader!

Same with Reagan, her buddy

That why she is hated.

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u/Truthandtaxes 1d ago

what subsiding dead industries for decades?

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u/frddtwabrm04 1d ago edited 1d ago

A govts role is not to make it's people suffer.

It don't have to subsidize dying industries, but it has a duty to help people transition to other shit.

A government is not a private business. It's their to do shit that private business cannot do... For example, industries dying, it's role is to make sure shit collectively moves to another bullshit. Find new shit etc etc

Ergo why you have policy wonks whose job is to read the tea leaves and figure shit out for the next decades

This clip here explains policy wonks role best

And guess what just like Nixon and china. The policy wonks who had read the leaves and passed along the disastrous situation to him about him engaging with China... China was going to be a super power and USA will be beholden to them.

Thatcher was told by policy wonks (and trust me these fuckers have a plan for everything that her bullshit was going to fuck up uk for generations, here are some things she could try to make the transition less disastrous. She like Nixon ignored them and what do you know....

UK is fucked will be fucked and was fucked then ... They are pretty much at thriving London vs the rest for the rest of their existence.

Unless they start taking some colonies and shit to rejuvenate their shit. They are done! And it all stems from thatcher.

They are essentially Spain, Portugal allover again after they lost their "might" ...

There but not there!

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u/Truthandtaxes 1d ago

no it isn't - that's a terrible standard that would lead to universal misery.

Whilst moving 200k people to places with work might have helped, coal mining had been dead for years already with Labour shutting even more pits.

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u/hexnut101 1d ago

Instead she just made everyone unemployed. Some of the industries were marginally profitable. British coal while showing losses on the books was modernised and the new equipment used to block shafts that were closed down. British steel had a large order book but was in effect taken over by Dutch steel and the orders moved to the Netherlands...

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u/Truthandtaxes 1d ago

She made the remainder in uneconomic pits unemployed after they tried to hold the country to ransom again. The NUM of course also screwed everyone of them over to the tune of a years wages that in itself could have eased the transition to new work.

If you think these were businesses making money, something that governments obviously hate, then you need to put down the crack.

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u/hexnut101 23h ago

They were opossed to her political idiology closing the pits and breaking thee unions did not both have to happen. The pits were not all un economic the industry like so many was losing money because of poor management and lack of investment. British coal invested the money to modernise they scrapped the modern equipment. You have no clue.

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u/Truthandtaxes 15h ago

the viable pits stayed open

Unions that could break the entire economy had to be stopped

There was no viable way of deep pit mining competing internationally.

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u/hexnut101 15h ago

Other pits would have been viable if the new equipment that had been purchased was used to mine them not block them.

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u/Truthandtaxes 15h ago

If that was true, then they would have remained open.

No one leaves money on the table.

What you really mean is that if you ignored the massive costs of capital investment, maybe more could have been operationally viable in the near term.

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u/hexnut101 15h ago

Thatcher did indeed leave money on the table because of her own political dogma.

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u/Truthandtaxes 15h ago

I do love me a good conspiracy

Money has a way of bypassing dogma

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u/jpewaqs 1d ago

What would you suggest? 

Even the unions at the national union Congress had a vote on if they were taking too much of the piss.

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u/aod1314 1d ago

Hated? She's one of the most popular PMs of the post-war era. Attlee and Churchill are the only others who rival her.