Today
the world mourns the death of Baroness Margaret Thatcher, the longest serving
and only woman to be Prime Minister of England in the 20th
century. Born in Lincolnshire, England
in 1925, she began her career as a chemist and later joined politics in 1959 as
a member of parliament. She was most
notably influenced by The Road to Serfdom,
a book by everyone’s favorite: FA Hayek.
This piece talked about the evils of government intervention and why a
more hands on central government was sure to expedite the downfall of a nation.
Elected
as Prime Minister in 1979, she carried the worldview set out in Hayek’s works
and set about the enormous task of privatizing government-owned companies like
British Steel as well as utility companies and others. She was also famous for fighting labor unions
and increasing interest rates to encourage saving. This had the effect of slowing the growth
rate of money supply and brought the rate of inflation down from 18% to 8.6%
over the course of her tenure.
As is typical of a disciple of
classical and neoclassical economics, she slashed government spending ruthlessly in many
areas including a 3.3 percent cut in defense, 67 percent cut in housing, and
5.8 percent cut in transport. She did
increase government spending in absolute terms between 1979 and 1990 by 12.9
percent by choosing to allocate resources to employment and training (+33.3%),
health and social security (+31.8% each), and law and order (+53.3%), among
others. She was also instrumental in the
skirmishes around the Falkland Islands when it was invaded by Argentina,
preserving that territory for the Crown.
She acquired many detractors over
the course of time, most notably in the Soviet Union who christened her the
“Iron Lady”, a moniker that she embraced.
She was known for bold words that were often well received, but had a
tendency to offend some who could not stomach disagreement with their own
beliefs. The people that tend to leave
an impression on society are rarely known to be soft spoken.
When I heard
about her passing, I recalled a U2 lyric and thought, “’the last of the rock stars’
is gone”. She belonged to a different
era, an era where political correctness had not yet been contrived and a person
was willing to be 100 percent transparent regardless of the ramifications for popularity. She was from an era when a person’s beliefs
guided his actions throughout time and not just conformed to the circumstances
of the moment and disposition of the crowd around him. The Iron Lady was well-beloved by some and
well-hated by others. But even her
detractors would have to acknowledge that behind all the things she did and what
she said was a strong human being that always had the best intentions of the
British Isles at heart and would sacrifice anything, even her own interests, to
do what she believed was right. That is
a lesson I think we should take to heart for our own integrity and the welfare of those around us.
MSN has a
page of her best quotes which I found to be an enjoyable read but there is a quote in particular I wanted to share from the 2011 movie “The Iron Lady”, a dramatization of her life, which sums up her character quite well.
“We will stand on principle, or we will not stand at all.”
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