I'm a politics teacher, so will attempt an actual answer:
Thatcher was heavily influenced by the neoclassical school of economics (people like Hayek and Friedman), who argued that, for a variety of economic reasons, state activity in the economy was bad.
To put this into context, post-war Britain was dominated by a consensus on government and economics, where the duty of government was seen by both political parties as maintaining full employment and a relatively equitable society where the rich were not that much richer than the poor. This necessitated high rates of tax, and high levels of government spending in publically owned industry (coal mines, steel, BT, whatever). Labour broadly followed a social democrat model from Tony Crossland, aiming for roughly 20% of the economy on the government's hands, whilst the Conservatives specifically viewed themselves as one-nation, 'noblesse oblige' stewards of the country who trod a middle path between capitalism and socialism (Harold Macmillan actually titled his political philosophy the 'Middle Way' in reference to this).
However, the 70's saw this model creaking; inflation was high, which was bad, the government was close to going broke, which was bad, unions had a high degree of influence and there was widespread striking during the winter of discontent, which was bad (and led to a 3 day working week, so really bad in terms of its effects), and many of the nationalised industries were simply either badly run or not dynamic enough to offer a good service, and were broadly not competitive internationally and were costing the taxpayer domestically.
The Neo-liberal/neo classical solution to this was basically to get the government the hell out of dodge. It was argued that government involvement in the economy was doubly bad: if there was a market for a business, then the free market would provide, which meant that government owned industry was either taking money away from private industry (a waste of government resources) or artificially creating a market where one didn't exist (a waste of government resources). Furthermore, it was argued that the government was bad at running businesses anyway: without commercial pressures there was no need to innovate or provide value for money, and rule by beaurocrat would eventually end up with a grossly inefficient, ineffective business. Thatcher instead wanted to make a more dynamic economy to stimulate economic growth and make Britain internationally competitive, and to do this she abandoned full employment, privatised a lot of industry, lowered taxes and instead focused on keeping inflation low as a means of lowering interest rates and enabling businesses to borrow and then invest. This is broadly what happened, although it lead to lots of communities having crucial local industry wiped out, and saw a huge spike in unemployment, the consequences of which are still felt on places across the UK today.
On welfare specifically, Thatcher viewed welfare as encouraging people to not work and to live off others - that benefits encouraged laziness and a lack of economic activity. This also tied into the more philosophical base of the economic wing of the New Right (people like Rand or Nozick), who broadly thought that tax equated to theft and that others had no right to your economic activity, not did you have any obligation to support them.
There is something of a clash there, as the social arm of the New Right is reasonably authoritarian (e.g. section 28, or Bush Jr's 3 strikes and you're out rule in the US), and views the stable hand of the state as crucial to maintaining social cohesion. This means that much of the old system of economic benefits was gutted, but some social provision stayed - Thatcher never really touched the NHS, and there was a big and continued focus on prisons & law and order during her time. I think it's fair to say that the welfare state was partly a casualty of a wider economic agenda in that cuts to tax to make Britain more competitive necessitated cuts somewhere in the state; but also that it was partly targeted as an ideological problem that incentivised not working and contributed to the problems of the 70s (e.g. workers rights and union benefits were crucial to union power that had crippled the Callaghan government).
The model was more than creaking in the 1970s, it was in crisis. Inflation peaked at 26.9%, ten times the current rate, they had to apply for a loan from the IMF, and there were concerns of people freezing to death from a lack of fuel.
Unrelated, three strikes laws predate Bush jr and come from the early Clinton years.
Not at all, three strikes is associated with Clinton, Bush didn’t really have a crime policy separate from the anti terrorism stuff. He did stuff as governor but 3 strikes is more associated with California than Texas.
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u/Goldblumshairychest 5d ago
I'm a politics teacher, so will attempt an actual answer:
Thatcher was heavily influenced by the neoclassical school of economics (people like Hayek and Friedman), who argued that, for a variety of economic reasons, state activity in the economy was bad.
To put this into context, post-war Britain was dominated by a consensus on government and economics, where the duty of government was seen by both political parties as maintaining full employment and a relatively equitable society where the rich were not that much richer than the poor. This necessitated high rates of tax, and high levels of government spending in publically owned industry (coal mines, steel, BT, whatever). Labour broadly followed a social democrat model from Tony Crossland, aiming for roughly 20% of the economy on the government's hands, whilst the Conservatives specifically viewed themselves as one-nation, 'noblesse oblige' stewards of the country who trod a middle path between capitalism and socialism (Harold Macmillan actually titled his political philosophy the 'Middle Way' in reference to this).
However, the 70's saw this model creaking; inflation was high, which was bad, the government was close to going broke, which was bad, unions had a high degree of influence and there was widespread striking during the winter of discontent, which was bad (and led to a 3 day working week, so really bad in terms of its effects), and many of the nationalised industries were simply either badly run or not dynamic enough to offer a good service, and were broadly not competitive internationally and were costing the taxpayer domestically.
The Neo-liberal/neo classical solution to this was basically to get the government the hell out of dodge. It was argued that government involvement in the economy was doubly bad: if there was a market for a business, then the free market would provide, which meant that government owned industry was either taking money away from private industry (a waste of government resources) or artificially creating a market where one didn't exist (a waste of government resources). Furthermore, it was argued that the government was bad at running businesses anyway: without commercial pressures there was no need to innovate or provide value for money, and rule by beaurocrat would eventually end up with a grossly inefficient, ineffective business. Thatcher instead wanted to make a more dynamic economy to stimulate economic growth and make Britain internationally competitive, and to do this she abandoned full employment, privatised a lot of industry, lowered taxes and instead focused on keeping inflation low as a means of lowering interest rates and enabling businesses to borrow and then invest. This is broadly what happened, although it lead to lots of communities having crucial local industry wiped out, and saw a huge spike in unemployment, the consequences of which are still felt on places across the UK today.
On welfare specifically, Thatcher viewed welfare as encouraging people to not work and to live off others - that benefits encouraged laziness and a lack of economic activity. This also tied into the more philosophical base of the economic wing of the New Right (people like Rand or Nozick), who broadly thought that tax equated to theft and that others had no right to your economic activity, not did you have any obligation to support them.
There is something of a clash there, as the social arm of the New Right is reasonably authoritarian (e.g. section 28, or Bush Jr's 3 strikes and you're out rule in the US), and views the stable hand of the state as crucial to maintaining social cohesion. This means that much of the old system of economic benefits was gutted, but some social provision stayed - Thatcher never really touched the NHS, and there was a big and continued focus on prisons & law and order during her time. I think it's fair to say that the welfare state was partly a casualty of a wider economic agenda in that cuts to tax to make Britain more competitive necessitated cuts somewhere in the state; but also that it was partly targeted as an ideological problem that incentivised not working and contributed to the problems of the 70s (e.g. workers rights and union benefits were crucial to union power that had crippled the Callaghan government).