An attitude of frugality towards public expenditure and a belief in the supremacy of market forces. Mrs Margaret Thatcher in 1970 as UK Secretary of State for Education, by abolishing free school milk, gained the former reputation; as Prime Minister of the UK from 1979 to 1990, her emphasis on monetary control (instead of extensive government intervention backed by public funds), on the PRIVATIZATION of nationalized industries and on the removal of LABOUR MARKET RIGIDITIES expressed her desire to unleash free market forces. She frequently used the analogy of good household management for such policies and is thus the contemporary expounder of Gladstonian finance.
Sir Geoffrey Howe in his first Budget speech of 1979 outlined the programme of Thatcherism in his four principles: the strengthening of economic incentives, the reduction of the burden of financing the public sector, the reduction in the role of the state to increase freedom of individual choice and increased responsibility in collective bargaining. In practice MONETARISM was short-lived and public spending prodigal in many years.
References
Johnson, C. (1991) The Economy under Mrs Thatcher, 1979–90, Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Thompson, G. (1986) The Conservatives’ Economic Policy, London: Croom Helm.
Walters, A.A. (1986) Britain’s Economic Renaissance: Margaret Thatcher’s Reforms, 1979–84, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
This is the complete article, containing 206 words
(approx. 1 page at 300 words per page).
