Margaret Thatcher at 100 | Yaron Brook Show - Yaron Brook Show

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Speaker 1 (00:02):
A lot of fundamental principles of.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
Last little cells and any individual lots.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
This is the show. Oh right, everybody, welcome to you
one book show on this Monday, October twentieth. This is
the second show today special edition. We're going to be
talking about Marga Thatcher.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Marga Thatcher Today was a sponsored show by Alexus and
also approximately one hundredth anniversary to Marga Thatcher's birth, So
thank you Alexis first for sponsoring this. You too can
sponsor the show on any topic you want, so take
that into account. So we're going to be talking about

(00:57):
Marga Thatcher, uh kind of history, a little bit about her,
what she did, her time in office, and the kind
of global impact, global impact she had.

Speaker 1 (01:12):
And yeah, you.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
Can ask questions super chat, you can ask about Bogatacci,
you can ask about politics, you can ask about anything
you want.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
As always, I am here to answer your questions. So
free for you to ask about anything.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
And remember the super chat and the stickers a way
to support the show.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
Value for value.

Speaker 2 (01:33):
You know, we live in times where it really is
impossible to admire anybody in politics. I mean, the best
you can say about somebody in politics these days is
they're not as bad as but there's really nothing positive.
There is nobody who makes a positive case for liberty

(01:57):
of freedom. There's nobody the one can look up to
from a mall perspective as somebody who who is principled,
even if we don't agree completely with their principles. And
when you do find somebody a principle, they're more likely
to be status principles. They're more likely to be principles

(02:18):
of religion, principles of.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
Some form of statism. You know. Maybe the most principled politicians.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
We have right now, those advocates of Christian conservatism. That
was not always the case. And we're going to talk
about Margat Thatcher today. And look, Margotacha is no objective saint,
she is no ideal politician.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
But I'm going to argue the Margat Thatcher.

Speaker 2 (02:46):
Was a woman, first of all, a strong, powerful woman
with an incredible speaker, with real rhetorics, somebody who believed
in certain principles and tried to implement them and articulated them,
and a woman who landed up without any question changing
the world, changing England, changing the United Kingdom where she lived,

(03:10):
but changing the world because she inspired change all over
the world, not.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
Just in her home country.

Speaker 2 (03:19):
So you know we're gonna we're gonna talk about that,
We're gonna talk about what she did, We're going to
talk about the legacy. We're going to talk about who
she influenced and so on. But you know, some of
this is I think significant in terms of the contrast
that we see with the middle of the road.

Speaker 1 (03:38):
Stand for nothing.

Speaker 2 (03:40):
Uh, pragmatists or powerlusters that exists today, We're all of them,
without exception, are statists.

Speaker 1 (03:49):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
And we lived through I lived to some of us
live through and where we had Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. Again,
neither one of them perfect, neither one of them mighty
ideal from it, but as compared to anybody today, head
and shoulders, head and shoulders, and maybe a lot more
than that, above anybody in our world, in our political universe.

Speaker 1 (04:16):
Today, and both.

Speaker 2 (04:21):
At least presented themselves and presented arguments for freedom, for liberty, for.

Speaker 1 (04:28):
Smaller, more limited government.

Speaker 2 (04:32):
So let's talk about kind of the biography a little
bit of Margat Thatcher. We'll get into what she actually did,
and then into her legacy. So Thatcher was born about
one hundred years ago, thirteenth of October nineteen twenty five,
in the town of Grantham in Lincolnshire, England. So kind
of rule will England if you will. She was born

(04:57):
to a kind of lower middle class family. Her father
owned a grocery business. So as comparison to many, maybe
probably most, of the prime ministers in the history of England,
she did not come from an upper class, from aristocratic
or a very very prominent family. She came from a

(05:21):
grocery business. Her father owned the grocery. They literally lived
above the grocery store. Her father was also quite active politically.
He was also a lay preacher at the Methodist Church.
But he was an older man, and he sat on
the finance committee and at some point even.

Speaker 1 (05:40):
Became mayor of Grantham.

Speaker 2 (05:43):
And indeed, Margaret Thatcher's first exposure to politics came from
her father's campaigns and working and seeing her father her
father's kind of civic roles and civic a positions, and
watching the campaigns and watching him perform in those roles.

(06:06):
My guess is she also got her I mean, she
obviously developed it herself, but she benefited from having a
father who had quite a ability a rhetorical ability, which
made him a kind of a lay preacher at.

Speaker 1 (06:19):
The Methodist Methodist Church.

Speaker 2 (06:22):
Of course, the Methodist environment, the Methodist religion was very
much about discipline, moral rectitude, community service.

Speaker 1 (06:32):
Things that I think ultimately.

Speaker 2 (06:36):
To some extent shaped the character of a Margathach or
help shape her character.

Speaker 1 (06:44):
She you know, she grew up in the backdrop of
World War two. Really if you.

Speaker 2 (06:50):
Think about the fact that she was born in twenty five,
the war breaks out in thirty nine, so she was
fourteen when the war broke out. By the time is over,
she is a young woman of twenty. So the war years,
years of difficulty and years of struggle for anybody in England,

(07:11):
years of relative poverty with again I think really really
important in maybe shaping her. She was super bright. She
attended local schools what's called in England, and grammar school,
which is a kind of a better public school, public

(07:31):
school with entrance exams standards, was a gals school.

Speaker 1 (07:36):
She had strong you know, she was good at school.
She was strong academic abilities.

Speaker 2 (07:45):
And again you know, continue to live above the grocery store,
pretty simple life again, lower middle class kind of life.

Speaker 1 (07:57):
In nineteen forty three, so just before they of the
end of the world. When she was.

Speaker 2 (08:01):
Eighteen, she wanted admission to some college in Oxford. Oxford University,
so the premiere or one of the one of the
premier universities in England. I don't want to piss off
the Cambridge crowd, and where she studied.

Speaker 1 (08:15):
Chemistry, chemistry.

Speaker 2 (08:20):
While at Oxford studying chemistry, she became active in student
politics and she ended up serving as president of the
Oxford University Conservative Association. But he was a young woman
going into the sciences. She graduated with honors, and she
when she left the university, she went and worked as

(08:43):
a researcher, research chemic chemist at a.

Speaker 1 (08:46):
Plastic and food company. But she never really.

Speaker 2 (08:52):
Enjoyed it or particularly liked it. She was not a
scientist at heart. And uh, you know, but she was
academically competent. She was obviously, you know, had the ability
to study science. She was obviously good at math, good
at science. She was a smart woman, very smart woman.

(09:14):
But immediately at Oxford she'd engaged in politics, and very
quickly after taking a job in chemistry, she left and
went to study law, like I guess most people in
politics went to study law and became a barrister. Now
I don't know what a barrister is. It's like a lawyer.
But you know in England they have all these different

(09:35):
kinds of lawyers that it's complicated, you know. Anyway, by
the only nineteen fifties, she starts pushing a political career.
The first time she wants four parliament she loses. Indeed,
I think she loses a number of races before she
finally gets in. In nineteen fifty one, she married Dennis Thatcher,

(09:58):
who is a successful business man. The fact that he
was successful and made money allowed her really to She
basically had financial independence at this point, allowed her to
focus on.

Speaker 1 (10:10):
A political career.

Speaker 2 (10:11):
She didn't have to worry about work, and he throughout
her life. I mean, as far as I can tell,
basically provided kind of a support, a backbone in while
she pursued her.

Speaker 1 (10:28):
Politics.

Speaker 2 (10:29):
I mean, he was the first gentleman of Downing Street,
and really the first first gentleman because she was the
first female Prime Minister of England. But from everything I've seen,
everything I've read, incredibly supportive.

Speaker 1 (10:46):
Strong man.

Speaker 2 (10:48):
You need to be a strong man to be married
to a strong woman, and incredibly supportive. So here's a
woman who studied science and goes into politics, brings to
that politics, I think, an incredibly strong work ethic.

Speaker 1 (11:11):
A origins in.

Speaker 2 (11:15):
A kind of in a lower middle class environment, which
I think helped her with a lot of her constituency.
She wasn't one of these snobbish upper class.

Speaker 1 (11:26):
People coming in.

Speaker 2 (11:27):
She could relate to the common man and somebody who
had some experience through her father in kind of politics,
in political role and so on.

Speaker 1 (11:42):
She'd got a great education.

Speaker 2 (11:44):
And again incredibly smart, incredibly able, incredibly hard working. She
was finally elected to parliament in nineteen fifty nine as
a Member of Parliament from the constituency of Finch, which
is in North London. Early on in the parliament she

(12:06):
was at what's called in England a backbencher, right, so
this is a junior a junior position within the political party,
but you're in parliament but not that important. And as
a backbencher though she was very active in policy issues,
she was interested in them and again hard working, hardworking

(12:28):
and very clear. She already at this point she clearly
had principles, she knew what she wanted, she had a
clear things she aligned with and during this period she
was part of what was called then the reformist wing
of the Conservative Party, the Conservative Party post World War Two,
it was the party of the mixed economy. It was

(12:49):
a party of compromise. It was a party that accepted
socialism in vast part of the economy. I just wanted
to do us like you better job. But it was
a bit of a road party, it was. It was
not a party committed to any kind of real principles.
It was them and the Labor Party, and the differences

(13:11):
were minor. The differences between the two political parties. Parties
were relatively minor. H there were forming of the Conservative
Party that was influenced by the very early think tanks
that were being established at the time, including the Institute
for Economic Affairs, was challenging of kind of the post

(13:35):
World War to consensus of the mixed economy, of state
intervention and of a large welfare state. So so they
were they were aligned much more with a small government,
limited government, reduced offastan, not eliminating it, and reduced role
for the government in the economy.

Speaker 1 (13:58):
And that is that was her political base. That's who
she was with. That's who she you know. That was
the network.

Speaker 2 (14:07):
That was the network she developed during this period of time.
By nineteen seventy she's no longer a backbencher. By nineteen
seventy she's a Secretary for Education and Science.

Speaker 1 (14:23):
This was under Edward Heath.

Speaker 2 (14:25):
Edward Heath won in nineteen seventy and appointed her for that. Now,
Edwards Heath was again a very middle of the road,
mixed economy, stand for nothing, really a prime minister in
s such he was a continuation of the failures of
previous governments. By nineteen seventy four, when the government fell

(14:48):
and a Labor Party was elected, Britain was in the
midst of inflation, of unemployment, of recession. Nineteen seventies were
not a good time in England.

Speaker 1 (15:01):
It was you know, it was a.

Speaker 2 (15:04):
Time of economic contraction, a time of economic failure, and.

Speaker 1 (15:11):
You know, she was part of the government that led
to that.

Speaker 2 (15:15):
She tried, she tried to engage in in education reforms.
Many of them were unpopular, but you know, you know,
she really tried.

Speaker 1 (15:30):
To focus on.

Speaker 2 (15:35):
Quality of education, on increasing the rigor and increasing the
quality of education. Anyway, in nineteen seventy five there was
an election for obviously the government failed. There was a
leadership change and there was election for the leadership of

(15:57):
the Conservative Party and therefore the leadership of the opposition.
That was nineteen seventy five, February eleventh, nineteen seventy five,
Thatcher becomes the leader of the Conservative Party and therefore
the leader of her of the opposition. And this changed
the Conservative Party at least then, maybe not so much

(16:18):
you know later, But then this was the rebellion of
the reformers. This was the younger generation. These were the
these were the radicals. These were the people who want
to change. They were not They did not want to
settle for the way things had been done, and viewed
kind of the failures of the Conservative Party in the

(16:40):
past as a challenge to themselves to kind of change direction.
So Thatcher represented a real shift, a shift in the
attitude of the party towards more market orientation, less state
intervention in the economy, smaller you know, smaller welfist. And

(17:01):
of course from seventy five to seventy nine, as she
was in the opposition, things were going worse in England.
You had rising inflation, industrial unrest, lots of strikes, lots
of strikes.

Speaker 1 (17:16):
And the Labor Party failing.

Speaker 2 (17:20):
Failing, and this of course created a great opportunity for her.

Speaker 1 (17:26):
It is only the background of people were fed up.

Speaker 2 (17:33):
I think about the nineteen seventies and I think this
is true of the United States. Nineteen seventies were dark period. Economically,
things were very bad. Ye know, it was not not
as bad as the nineteen thirties, but you had inflation.

Speaker 1 (17:49):
People hate inflation, had high unemployment.

Speaker 2 (17:52):
Again, the stagflation, you know, low economic growth and high
inflation is something the Canes did not anticipate. Keynesian policy
had dominated British governments since the end of World War Two,
and people were fed up. You know, the country was

(18:14):
in industrial decline, economic decline, and cost.

Speaker 1 (18:20):
Of living with skyrocketing.

Speaker 2 (18:22):
You know, in those days people forget this, but I
kind of remember, and other people maybe who lived in
London in the nineteen seventies micro called this London was
a dog place. I mean today I marvel at how
clean some of the buildings are and they regularly clean them.
But in those days there was grime in all the buildings.

(18:45):
It was. It was not a beautiful Today it's a
beautiful city. It was not a beautiful.

Speaker 1 (18:50):
City and it was a city there was really struggling.

Speaker 2 (19:02):
Again, struggling because of economic decay and economic decline in
Britain generally was like this. It was and people were
in a dark mood. And she was the leader of
the opposition. She had a radical vision. She was an
unbelievable hard worker. She had a clarity of purpose, you know,

(19:26):
clarity of what her ideology was, and she was just
ready for the job. In nineteen seventy nine, in the election,
the Conservative Party won the general election and on May fourth,
nineteen seventy nine, Margaret Thatcher becomes Prime Minister. Note that
this is a year and a half, almost two years

(19:47):
before Ronald Reagan becomes president, and immediately her guvernment starts
implementing changes. Their first priority is controlling inflation. To do that,
they're very much influenced by by Milton Friedman. So they
are monitorists, and so it means cutting back on government

(20:07):
printing of money. But it's not enough just to cut
just the printing of money. They also realize they have
to cut the size of government, the involvement of government.

Speaker 1 (20:17):
They have to really restructure things.

Speaker 2 (20:20):
One of the main sources of they believe problems in
economy is the massive power the trade unions of accumulated
accumulated over the twentieth century. So they immediately get to
work on reducing the power of the trade unions. This
is something that margaretach is involved in from nineteen seventy

(20:43):
nine really until the mid nineteen eighties when she finally
wins and is dramatically reduced reduced the power of the unions.
So you know immediately she is focused on economic liberalization.
Let me let me just once, let me skip my

(21:04):
head here for something. Say, I have notes and they're
not very organized, all right, So if you think about

(21:24):
economic reforms, is that Margaret Thatcher puts in place so
first tech control of the money supply to coup inflation. Indeed,
inflation goes from eighteen percent eighteen percent in nineteen seventy
nine to five percent under five percent in nineteen eighty three.
During this period, interest rate shoot up and unemployment goes

(21:46):
through the roof and then starts going down. She engages
a tax reform in nineteen seventy nine. One of the
first things she does is lower the top income text
rate from about eighty three percent eighty three percent.

Speaker 1 (22:05):
To sixty percent.

Speaker 2 (22:07):
Ultimately it's brought down to forty percent in nineteen eighty eight,
she increases the VAT, so she's moving away from income
taxation and more towards sales taxes.

Speaker 1 (22:21):
Now I wish she'd gone all the way.

Speaker 2 (22:23):
Ideally, you lower the income text to zero and you
raise the VAT to generate revenue, even if you have
to go to twenty five thirty percent. But yes, rely
less on taxing income, taxing work, taxing profits, taxing capital gains,
Taching's investment, and moved towards taxing consumption. So that was

(22:45):
increased from eight percent to fifteen percent in nineteen seventy nine.
Corporate taxes were lowered, and then she started putting controls
overblic public spending, reduced subsidies to state industries and local governments,
and stricter rules and welfare eligibility. So start shrinking government slowly.

(23:10):
So those are the films and and look, nobody was
happy about these reforms. Unemployment went up in the early
days and inflation was going through the roof, So that
was that was a real worry.

Speaker 1 (23:22):
It was people were struggling.

Speaker 2 (23:24):
People were skeptical at first about what she was doing.
And you know, elections were coming up in the in
the mid nineteen eighties, and you know, the reality is
that the Conservative Party was very unpopular, and.

Speaker 1 (23:43):
Really what saved her was.

Speaker 2 (23:47):
The one the Falklands, you know, the Falklands, these islands
in in uh the Atlantic Ocean off the coast, you know,
quite quite far off the coast of Argentina that Argentina

(24:11):
claim as some claim over in its history and it's past.
And Argentina basically invaded to suppose you reclaimed this is.

Speaker 1 (24:31):
In nineteen eighty two, and it could have been.

Speaker 2 (24:35):
Very easy for Thatch, you anybody else to basically said, oh, look,
you know, yeah, okay, let's negotiate or something. Argentina had
long claimed sovereignty. They'd argued that the islands were taken
by Britain in eighteen thirty three and looked us as

(24:56):
eight thousand miles from London. The British Empire was already gone.
What's the point. Well Thatcher didn't take that approach, and
her view was, no, you know, we will defend these islands.
The invasion was a surprise. It was April second, nineteen

(25:19):
eighty two. Argentina forces invaded, occupied the islands, overwhelmed the
small British garrison there was there Thatcher's response was, we
have ceased to be a nation and retreat again. This
is after decades of the UK just just becoming smaller

(25:39):
and smaller, the you know, shedding, shedding its colonies and
its empire and just becoming a weaker and smaller and insignificant.
Natia I think, I think the self esteem of Brits
when it came to kind of the nation and what
the nation could do at a very low point, and

(26:02):
she was like, we're now retreating, We're going after them.
Within hours of the invasion, she convened her war cabinet
decided to send a naval task force one hundred plus ships,
twenty seven thousand troops eight thousand miles to retake the islands.
The decision exemplified what Thatcher was about right in her

(26:23):
public image. She was quick, bold and willing to take risks.
A lot of people thought this was suicide. Just the
logistics of managing a war from three thousand miles away
would kill it. Thatcher's argument was, the Falklands are British,
they must be freed. Nobody's going to just take it
away from us.

Speaker 1 (26:48):
And of course the war was won. Between April and June.

Speaker 2 (26:54):
British forces slowly recaptured the island, first South Jeoji, which
is April twenty fifth, pretty quickly, and by June fourteenth
Argentinian forces surrendered. The total war lasted seventy four days and.

Speaker 1 (27:13):
Regained control of the islands.

Speaker 2 (27:15):
This had a you know, two hundred and fifty five
British and six hundred and forty nine Argentinians soldiers died
as part of it, but overall the victory was considered swift, total,
incredibly symbolic. And that's just popularity went from twenty five
percent before. Remember, high unemployment, high interest rates, economy struggling,

(27:40):
inflation almost not quite killed yet the reforms were holding reforms.

Speaker 1 (27:47):
It was struggling with the reforms.

Speaker 2 (27:50):
Twenty five percent over sixty. She's gained this aura of
decisiveness and British confidence and we can do stuff. And
as a conseqt with her that she called an early
election in nineteen eighty three and she won in a landslide.

(28:11):
She declared, Britain found herself again in the South Atlantic
and will not look back from the victory she has won.
So put aside the importance of the Folkland island. They're
probably not that importance. The importance here was to morale.
The importance here was to kind of the sense the

(28:33):
patriotism and the confidence the Brits gained in their own government,
in their prime minister, in Morga Thatcher. So what really
happened then was it just gave her a boost to
do so much more so, you know, I'd say, up
until nineteen eighty two eighty three, much of what she

(28:55):
had done was pretty standard stuff that you would do
to to defeat inflation. It wasn't particularly radical, it wasn't big.
It was important, it needed to be done. But a
lot of the radical stuff happens after nineteen eighty three,
after her Lanchlide victory, after the Falkland victory.

Speaker 1 (29:18):
So starting with privatization.

Speaker 2 (29:21):
In nineteen eighty four, British telecomis privatized, British gas in
eighty six, British Airways in eighty seven, but it's still
in eighty eight, Alexristine, what are utilities are privatized in
the late nineteen eighties. Council housing people are giving given
the right Council housing is like public housing, government housing,
and people are There's a right to buy program that

(29:44):
is passed by Parliament which allows the resident in the
public housing to buy the housing at a reasonable price.
Million people ultimately no sorry, yeah, a million people gain
home ownership as a consequence of this, right over a
million people by nineteen ninety, just by nineteen ninety.

Speaker 1 (30:05):
So this was huge. The housing reformed.

Speaker 2 (30:07):
Now the housing reform is actually in nineteen eighty, but
you know, people benefited throughout. Privatization ultimately raised billions in revenue,
which the Brits needed in order to pay back of Dad.

Speaker 1 (30:23):
But it was.

Speaker 2 (30:23):
A it really led to a wave of privatization. We'll
get we'll get to this in the global influence, a
wave of privatization throughout the world. She had this profound
impact on other countries, including many including Eastern European countries
in the nineties, but certainly Third World countries that were

(30:45):
beginning to liberalize by million Asia, and part of that
was through privatization. Britain was the model. She just started
to take on the unions in more aggressive fashion. While
she had started in nineteen eighty and there were picketing

(31:05):
and strikes against her, and this was part of her
lack of popularity going into the Falkland War. She continued
that She doubled up on this in nineteen eighty four
with the Trade Union Act, which required secret ballid before strikes,
the Employment Act of nineteen eighty eight, which curtailed union
immunities and legal disputes, and then the big confrontation with

(31:27):
a minus strike. She was closing down a coal mines
and there was a massive minus strike nineteen eighty four
to nineteen eighty five. It lasted a year and it
basically broke the unions and they've never really recovered. It
broke the political dominance. Unions basically controlled British industry. They

(31:48):
colled British politics. The threat of strikes was something that
intimidated every politician, and she stood firm she would not
let the strike.

Speaker 1 (32:02):
Change your policies.

Speaker 2 (32:06):
After this, number of strikes fell, industrial disputes fell, and
union's lost influence. And of course, when you allow labor
markets to be more flexible, when unions lose power, productivity
goes up, wealth creation goes up. It's one of the
secrets to success is get flexible labor markets. She just

(32:31):
engage with massive deregulation. One of the biggest things was
what's called the Big Bang of nineteen eighty six. Which
was sweeping deregulation of the financial industry and the London
Stock Exchange got rid of fixed commission rates, allowed for
an ownership of member firms in the Stock Exchange, introduced

(32:53):
electronic trading, basically the Big Bang, together with banking reforms
and other nange reforms in the mid nineteen eighties turned London.

Speaker 1 (33:05):
To what it is today.

Speaker 2 (33:06):
You know, maybe it's losing its edge today, but what
it was up until recently, which was basically one of
the leading, maybe second only to New York financial centers
in the world. It shifted Britain from a industry an
economy based on heavy industry to an economy based on

(33:28):
services where finance played a big, big role in that.
So this was a major, you know, a major transformation.
London really becomes a hub. And this is part of
when London is studying to generate and almost revenues and
the city gets built up, all the skyscrapers in the

(33:49):
city and funds available to clean London up, and you know,
a lot of.

Speaker 1 (33:55):
Good things, I guess a lot of good things happen.

Speaker 2 (34:00):
She reforms the public sector and civil services, making government
more efficient, more business like, to the extent that you
can do that, you know, reduced the kind of entrenched
nature of British bureaucracy.

Speaker 1 (34:17):
And then you.

Speaker 2 (34:18):
Know, with the Falkland Wars. With the Folkland War, she
establishes Britain as strong. From policy wise, she's very much
aligned with Ronald Reagan in standing up to the Soviets.

Speaker 1 (34:31):
Very much, you know.

Speaker 2 (34:33):
Aligned with Reagan and deploying nuclear missiles in Europe.

Speaker 1 (34:38):
Interestingly, while she supports a single.

Speaker 2 (34:41):
European market, she supports the idea of free movement of labor, capital.

Speaker 1 (34:47):
And goods.

Speaker 2 (34:49):
Margatucha is the first Euroskeptic in the sense of she's
very very reluctant about further integration with Europe.

Speaker 1 (34:58):
She's worried about.

Speaker 2 (34:59):
Taking on regulatory burden of Europe, you know, regulating from Europe.
I mean, she's she's a deregulator and then to go
and ask Europe to regulate you that goes against everything
she believes in. So she would have never gotten Great Britain,
as you know, immersed in Europe, as you know, Great

(35:22):
Britain became, and if they would have never been a
need for Brexit if they had listened to her, you know,
they she chooses an actual curriculum, you know, and again
not a radical when it came to privatizing education or
anything like that, or eliminating in the welfare state, again

(35:44):
shrinking it, making it harder to get welfare, but not
in a big way, not in dramatic fashion, at least
not by nineteen ninety. Who knows what would have happened
if she had, if she had continued after that. Ultimately,
what Thatcher was about, what is shifting Britain which had
become a socialist hellhole, a dying country. I mean, I

(36:09):
Ran wrote about England, about the brain drain and all
the all the smart people leaving England and moving to
the United States. It was a dying place, dying place,
and she shifted it towards a market economy, which it
has been, you know, again a mixed economy, but a

(36:31):
mixed economy in nineteen seventies dominated by socialism. It shifted
to mixed economy dominated by markets, and that's lasted and
you know until recently until today maybe arguably, and it's
shifting away from that, just as it is in the
United States.

Speaker 1 (36:50):
I mean.

Speaker 2 (36:50):
And what she did was created massive prosperity. I mean,
England became a much wealthier place. Again, I'd say since
the financial crisis that prosperity has been in decline or
at least growing at a very very slow rate. But
the economic boom of the eighties and nineties and two thousands,
although we have to financial crisis, that is all thatcher.

Speaker 1 (37:13):
That is all thatcher. The relative wealth that.

Speaker 2 (37:16):
Is represented by London in particularities all over England is.

Speaker 1 (37:23):
It's thatture. It would have never happened.

Speaker 2 (37:26):
Without a the regular Conservative Party would have never been
able to make it happen.

Speaker 1 (37:35):
All right.

Speaker 2 (37:36):
Now, in nineteen ninety there were a few things that
ultimately led to her, you know, having having to who
resigning whatever initiatives.

Speaker 1 (37:54):
Was something called the poll tax.

Speaker 2 (37:57):
The poll tax was a was a.

Speaker 1 (38:02):
Replacement for the property taxes.

Speaker 2 (38:05):
So it was it was meant to fund local governments
and replace property taxes with a flat tax. Everybody paid,
Every adult paid exactly the same amount, and you got
tax based on how many adults.

Speaker 1 (38:21):
Every adult paid a particular amount of money.

Speaker 2 (38:23):
And this was supposed to fund local government. Now, uh,
this faced huge opposition, right, This was a proposal way
ahead of its time in many respects, right, because.

Speaker 1 (38:39):
The reality was that this is this is not progressive.

Speaker 2 (38:45):
Whereas a property tax you paid more so that the
gal has the mansion pays a lot more than the
person who's struggling to make a living and living in
a small apartment, a poll tax everybody pays the same.
The aristocrat who has a title and maybe has a
castle somewhere, and the common work up.

Speaker 1 (39:07):
Pay exactly the same.

Speaker 2 (39:09):
The politext was originally introduced in Scotland with a lot
of resistance. It then was expanded to the rest of
the UK. Many many people refused to pay it. There
were massive protests. There was a poll text riot in
London in March of nineteen ninety and Pole showed her

(39:31):
becoming less and less popular and Conservatives generally Conservative popularity
Conservative Party plummeted.

Speaker 1 (39:40):
Even loyal Conservatives were opposed.

Speaker 2 (39:42):
To this, but she was stubborn and she insisted on
doing it, and she ran with it, and this alienated
her for many people within the Conservative Party and many
people in the public. She also was drifting away from

(40:04):
the rest of the Consertive Party. On Europe, many in
the Conserti Party were eager for much greater.

Speaker 1 (40:09):
Integration with the European Union. She warned against it.

Speaker 2 (40:14):
Indeed, in nineteen ninety she delivered a famous Commons outburst.

Speaker 1 (40:19):
I guess where she.

Speaker 2 (40:20):
Said, no, no, no, as only Morgatacher could say, rejecting
any further European integration. As a consequence of that, her
found secretary, who was a longtime ally, resigned on thirteenth
of November nineteen ninety, accusing her of undermining colleagues and

(40:41):
isolating Britain in Europe. And the fact that Howe was
willing to leave and to give a scathing speech, very
anti thatch of speech, a galvanized opposition to her, an
ultimately galvanized opposition to people too willing to challenge her

(41:04):
in a leadership position. Michael hezel Time, who will be
remembered any think, for you know, bringing about that is
resignation more than anything else that he did in life.
He was charismatic, ambitious, and a long time rival of her,
actually challenged her for party leadership.

Speaker 1 (41:24):
In the first ballot, she won.

Speaker 2 (41:25):
Two hundred and four to one hundred and fifty two,
but not enough to reach the requirement for an outright victory.

Speaker 1 (41:32):
Which I think is twos or thirds or something like that.

Speaker 2 (41:35):
It required a second ballot, and people close to her
were convinced she would now win a second ballot, and
as a consequence, she resigned on November twenty second, nineteen ninety,
after serving eleven years as Prime Minister, the longest continuous

(41:57):
premiership of the twentieth century. So the first woman and
the longest premiership of the twentieth century was Margaret Thatcher
eleven years. So you know, the poll tax made him
unpopular Europe, made it unpopular within the within the party,

(42:21):
and people resented her personal style. She was tough, she
was autocratic, and she was very isolated. At the end
of the day, she stuck to her principles. And while
everybody's excited about kind of free market reforms and moving
towards as the phone set in and the economy was

(42:41):
doing well and everything was going fine, a lot of
people in the consertive body said, Okay, enough, enough is enough? Right,
people like us, We've done good, the economy is growing.
Why continue?

Speaker 1 (42:59):
See what? For her this was ideological. She had a
deep belief in.

Speaker 2 (43:07):
Markets, not free markets as I would want, but in
more markets, in limited government, in personal responsibility. I think
if she'd stayed, she would have wanted and she would
have been eager to reform the office state, although I
doubt she would have touched the NHS which needed it.
She left in November nineteen ninety John Major became a

(43:30):
succeeded as Prime Minister.

Speaker 1 (43:32):
He was mostly a.

Speaker 2 (43:33):
Nothing Thatcher remained in Parliament until nineteen ninety two as
a backbencher. When she left Parliament, and she spent the
rest of her life kind of touring the world and
giving lectures and talks and attending events. In later years
she suffered from dementia and she kind of retired from

(43:55):
public life and she passed away winners at I think
two thousand and three. But I want to talk about
just a little bit about her influencers on her Margatacha
was she herself, I don't think was an intellectual, but

(44:19):
she surrounded herself or at least was heavily influenced by intellectuals.
She had read wrote the Swyftem by Hayek at a
relatively young age, and had read it was reading Hayek throughout.
She got to meet Hayek when he was at the
inn Cry of Economic Affairs in London, and no question

(44:41):
very influenced by him, both in terms of her rhetoric,
and in terms of her beliefs. She again didn't go
all out with Hyek's programs, but what she did do
was definitely inspired by him. At some point in the
late nineteen seven she, you know, in a meeting of

(45:02):
the Conservative Party, she took his book on the Constitution
of Liberty, slammed it on the table and said, this
is what the Conservative Party is about. Right, So she
was very sorry twenty thirteen, two thousand and three, I missbooks.
She died in twenty thirteen, but after she had not
been in public for quite a while because of her health.

Speaker 1 (45:25):
So she was very intellectual in accidence. She was always
also very close to her man.

Speaker 2 (45:36):
Was this second named Keith Joseph. Keith Joseph, also inspired
by Hayek, and Keith and Margitachi actually formed a think
tank in the mid nineteen seventies, and again they were
also very involved with the Institute of Economic Influence, with
the Institute for Economic Affairs A Keith don't remember the

(45:59):
Conservative of a Party a kind of a he was
called the mad Monk, the mad Monk, mad because he
was considered radical, a radical for free markets, and a
monk because he had kind of the temperament of a monk,
very intellectual, very ideological, real an ideologue. And Keith Joseph

(46:28):
was somebody who if he wanted to, and he had
the temperament for it, could have been prime minister.

Speaker 1 (46:34):
He probably would have led the Concerted Party, but he
he he.

Speaker 2 (46:38):
Walked away from that and wanted Magatauchi to have it
because his view, you know, this was not the right
goal for him. He was not a political leader. His
key intellectual influencers were Hayak Friedman and members of the
Austrian and Chicago School of Economics, which he read extensively.

(47:03):
He was very friendly with Thatcher while she was a
back bencher, but particularly in the nineteen seventies that she
became more prominent, and particularly as she prepared as head
of the opposition to become Prime minister one day. She
was heavily influenced by him, and his approach was, look,

(47:26):
the number one enemy we have.

Speaker 1 (47:27):
To deal with immediately politically is inflation.

Speaker 2 (47:31):
But he's famous for a speech that he gave saying
monetarism is not enough in order to kill inflation. It's
not enough to stop putting money. What we also need
to do is reform government. Shrink government, privatize, break the unions,
all the things that Margaret Thatcher ultimately do. He gave

(47:56):
two famous speeches in the nineteen seventies, one in seventy six,
both in seventy six, one in April, one in October.

Speaker 1 (48:03):
Monetarism is not enough.

Speaker 2 (48:05):
We articulate a governing program of how to defeat inflation
in a sustainable way by restructuring governments, by shrinking, by
by starting to pin money, but also by restructuring government.
And then a second speech was stranded in the in
the middle ground, where he attacked kind of the middle ground.

(48:30):
The neither here nor their attitude of the Conservative Party,
this idea that they didn't stand for anything.

Speaker 1 (48:41):
This is just a quote from his speech.

Speaker 2 (48:43):
Instead of seeking from a ground, we have insisted against
the evidence on staying on the middle ground of consensus
politics of incremental reform, where we neither confront fully the
expansion of the state nor offer alternative.

Speaker 1 (49:01):
We remained stranded on the middle ground.

Speaker 2 (49:05):
He says conservatives should not aim to return to the
status quo, but seek out the common ground based on
the individual, initiative, enterprise, and the framework of freedom, rather
than further bureaucratic control. We must move away from the
merrily managed, manageable towards the necessary, from preservation to reform.

(49:31):
So he was the guy who really came up with
the reform plan. He was the guy behind the scene
who structured the reforms that Margaret Thatcher engaged in. He
was the intellectual in the background, but not just he
was a politician and intellectual.

Speaker 1 (49:53):
He was involved in politics.

Speaker 2 (49:55):
He was part of the conservative movement, Conservative Party, but
he was in the back.

Speaker 1 (50:01):
Okay. I thought i'd add with some juicy quotes from Thatcher.

Speaker 2 (50:05):
She was some kind of representative. Quotes from her speeches
and interviews. Here's one for nineteen eighty seven where she says,
there's no such thing as society. There are individual men
and women, and there are families. Now if you take
out the ending, and there are families, which is a

(50:27):
reflection of her conservative I think leanings and conservative and
maybe religious upbringing. There's no such thing a society. There
are individual men and women. Is straight out of Iinrand, right.
I mean, that's perfect. From nineteen seventy nine the Conservative
Party Conference, she says pennies don't fall from heaven.

Speaker 1 (50:50):
They have to be earned. Que on oath.

Speaker 2 (50:54):
Imagine a politician saying anything like this today in nineteen
eighty you cannot spend your way out of her session
or borrow your way out of debt. That's anti Canes
or a famous nineteen seventy six. This is in nineteen
seventy six. So this is just as she's become the

(51:16):
head of the Conservative Party. The problem with socialism is
that you eventually run out of other people's money, one
of the many problems of socialism. She also said, I
do not know anyone who got to the top without
hard work. That is a recipe. It will not always
get you to the top, but you'd get you pretty near. No,

(51:39):
it would remember the good Samaritan, if he only had
good intentions, he had money as well. About government and
freedom in nineteen eighty three to the House of Commons,
the state has no source of money other than the

(52:00):
money people earn themselves. A obvious truth that everybody wants
to deny.

Speaker 1 (52:07):
Right.

Speaker 2 (52:08):
It is not the creation of wealth that is wrong, right,
but the love of money for its own sake. That's
you know, that's her biblical that's going back to her
biblical roots.

Speaker 1 (52:20):
Right. There's nothing wrong with the love of Money.

Speaker 2 (52:24):
Seventy nine election campaign statement, plan to reduce the role
of government, not to increase it. Speech in nineteen eighty one.
You may have to fight a battle more than once
to win it. This is she told the opposition in

(52:48):
the mid nineteen eighties. If you want to cut your
own throat, don't come to me for bandage. If you've
watched any of his speeches, you'll be amazed by how
articulate she was, particularly compared to politicians today. Here's one

(53:08):
about character. Look at a day when you are supremely
satisfied at the end.

Speaker 1 (53:14):
It's not a.

Speaker 2 (53:14):
Day when you lounge around doing nothing. It's when you've
had everything to do and you've done it. In nineteen
eighty two, in a speech, she writs, standing in the
middle of the road is very dangerous. You get knocked
down by the traffic from both sides. That's about being

(53:35):
in the middle right, not taking a stand. I am
extraordinarily patient provided I get my own way in the end.
What's your thoughts for? They will become actions. What's your
actions for? They'll become character. What's your character for? It

(54:00):
becomes your destiny. I think that's good.

Speaker 1 (54:04):
I think that's true, She said, I'm not a consensus politician.
I'm a conviction politician.

Speaker 2 (54:14):
That's at the seventy nine Concilico convention before she becomes
my minister.

Speaker 1 (54:18):
Being powerful is like being a lady.

Speaker 2 (54:21):
If you have to tell people you are you aren't,
it's pretty good.

Speaker 1 (54:32):
This is you know.

Speaker 2 (54:35):
People attacked U in nineteen eighty at her party's conference
because of her economic reforms, and she said to them,
you turn if you want to. The lady is not
for turning. She said, there can be no liberty and

(54:56):
list of his economic liberty. All right, what else, let's see,
she said, you know, during the during the nineteen eighties,
I don't mind how much my minister's talk this is

(55:18):
to depress and others, as long as they do what
I say. She said of her critics and fall and
policy in the mid nineteen eighties, I seem to smell
the stench of appeasement in the air.

Speaker 1 (55:38):
She said.

Speaker 2 (55:39):
You don't follow the crowd, you lead it. She said
in an interview in nineteen eighty one, this is a
good one. Economics of the method. The object is to
change the soul. It's an interesting perspective. You change the
economic system. People's people's whole valuesms, their soul changes. She said,

(56:03):
choice is the essence of ethics. If there were no choice,
there would be no good and evil. That's absolutely true.
It seems like a no brainer, but so many people
think they could have no free will and morality at
the same time. Disciplining oneself to do what one knows

(56:24):
is right and important, although difficult, is the high road
to pride, self esteem, and personal satisfaction. Pride is a
virtue here self esteem. I mean, she had a certain
morality is duty that came from her religiosity, I think.

Speaker 1 (56:50):
But she was a.

Speaker 2 (56:51):
Very this worldly woman, and you know, she had a
lot of very very good I mean, her drive for
liberty and freedom was was driven primarily by her view
of people being responsible for their own lives and and

(57:15):
and being provided with it or being provided with the
liberty and to be able to exercise that responsibility. Yeah,
I mean she combined in her speeches Marsten t. I
mean again, there's a lot of duty. There's a lot

(57:36):
of duty in that morality, and a lot of but
there's a lot of self alliance. So a combination of
duty and self reliance which you sometimes get in religion.
She was an economic realist, a free marketer. But but
she she had a clear idea of what was possible
and what was not in terms of getting her reforms across.

(57:58):
She she was definitely for some money and physical restraint
and government spending restraint. She had clear political resolve. She
was no compromise of socialism. She despised socialism, and she
had a vision of freedom grounded in the individual individualism.
I like that quote about there's no such thing as society,
only individual men and women.

Speaker 1 (58:19):
That's exactly what she was.

Speaker 2 (58:22):
I mean, at the end of the day, I think
Margaret Thatcher was the towering political figure of the late
twentieth century.

Speaker 1 (58:29):
I think she's bigger than Reagan.

Speaker 2 (58:32):
She faced bigger challenges than Reagan because England was in
worse shape than America. She had to turn it around
more dramatically, and she did. Reagan benefited from a lot
of the deregulation that already started under primarily Jimmy Carter,
a little bit under Joe Ford. And of course politics

(58:52):
in America is very different in terms of in terms
of you know, a different relationship with Parliament. Thatcher had
a fire for everything. She got all the time. You couldn't.
It's not like you're elected president. You got four years,
you could lose, you could be you could be kicked
out at any point as a prime minister, and she
had a fight for everything that shows a real believer

(59:16):
in in in you know, markets, not not again les
fake capitalism, but as close as any politician has come
to markets, any politician in a in a Meiji economy.
She completely as I said before, she completely changed England,
but her legacy with international and in the nineties she

(59:36):
spent a lot of her time traveling, for example, in
the after the fall of Building Wall, to Eastern European
countries encouraging the encouraging them to follow her kind of
privatization program that she had instituted in England in nineteen eighties,
and a lot of people in the Czech Republic and
elsewhere credited her for kind of ouraging them to orient

(01:00:02):
the economies towards markets and away from socialism. I think
she did the same thing in Asia. I think the
South Koreans, the Taiwanese, the Asian Tigers were hugely inspired
by the British model, hugely inspired by Margaret Thatcher and
what she had achieved, and she had a powerful character.

(01:00:25):
She people understood. This was a woman of principle. Again,
I don't agree with everything she said. I don't agree
with all the principles, and she compromised even more than
I would have liked. But compared to any other politician
in the late twentieth century, certainly since Churchill, I think
she was a giant. She was a giant, and there's

(01:00:47):
nobody in British politics. There's nobody in American politics that
comes anywhere close to her, and it comes anywhere close
to the kind of influence she had. Yeah, so happy birthday,
Marga Thatcher. We can all hope that sometime in our future,

(01:01:09):
in the next decade or so, there will be another
generation of politicians like you. I hope that's possible. We
certainly need it. We're going through our own nineteen seventies
right now. We need a generation of reformers, a generation
it's willing to challenge the status quo.

Speaker 1 (01:01:26):
A generation is willing to.

Speaker 2 (01:01:28):
Move a political dialogue towards greater liberty, not away from liberty.
And yeah, we need Amarga Thatcher. There's absolutely no question
about that. All right, That is what I have to say,
at least as of right now, we are going to

(01:01:51):
take a look and say, let me just do something here,
take a look at what questions you have.

Speaker 1 (01:01:58):
I know. Whoops, that's not what I wanted. Once again,
give me a second.

Speaker 2 (01:02:05):
Here, No, no, yeah, there it is okay.

Speaker 1 (01:02:16):
All right, let's see the dum And.

Speaker 2 (01:02:26):
By the way, politically, she got lucky because if Argentina
doesn't invade the Falkland Islands in nineteen eighty two, it's
not clear she survives to do all the amazing things
she did dur in the nineteen eighties. It was that
victory and her ability to stand up to the Argentinians

(01:02:49):
and win that led to the landslide victory that made
possible the privatizations. There were forms, I mean, the deregulation
of the railroads and partial privatization of the railroads. All
of that could have never happened without the Falklands. So
sometimes in politics, as in life, you got to get
a little lucky too.

Speaker 1 (01:03:08):
You got to get a little lucky. All right, let's see,
let's go to a super chance and let's see Richard
is here with us.

Speaker 2 (01:03:24):
By the way, we're this closed our first hour goal,
which we've already done the first hour so we're just
eleven dollars short of that goal, so please consider doing that.
You know, stickers are welcome. That's when you don't ask
a question, you just provide financial support.

Speaker 1 (01:03:40):
That is great.

Speaker 2 (01:03:42):
Stephen Harper, for example, thank you, Steven did a sticker
earlier on. You know, super Chat is even better because
you get to ask a question and I get to
answer it. You provide content to the show that way,
So please please consider asking questions. We've got a few
questions that win take, but few fee to jump in

(01:04:02):
with more questions. So we have stickers and we have
super Chet questions.

Speaker 1 (01:04:11):
All right, let's see Richard one hundred dollars. Thank you, Richard.

Speaker 2 (01:04:19):
Thatcher deserves credit for the liberalization of Eastern Europe yep,
that's what I said, and subsequent economic boom of the nineties,
and for stopping the decline of the UK.

Speaker 1 (01:04:29):
Well, not just stopping the decline, but.

Speaker 2 (01:04:33):
Changing the slope to an upward slope where the UK
became significantly richer, inspiring a role model and a fierce
warrior for liberty.

Speaker 1 (01:04:43):
Not an objective, it's but a fellow traveler thoughts.

Speaker 2 (01:04:46):
Yeah, no, absolutely as close as any again. Twentieth century
later twentieth century politician came to being a fellow traveler.

Speaker 1 (01:04:56):
And what you did in the UK.

Speaker 2 (01:04:59):
I didn't and objectives couldn't have done it because he
wouldn't have got elected.

Speaker 1 (01:05:03):
She could get elected.

Speaker 2 (01:05:04):
Because she wasn't you know, she wasn't a lusific capitalist.
She could get elected and implement amazing things, move us
in an incredible positive direction. And as you say Eastern Europe,
I would also give a credit for Southeast Asia, and
of course for even for Europe itself. I mean nineteen

(01:05:25):
eighty so the French elect a socialist president Mitterrand, who privatized,
who nationalized the banking system.

Speaker 1 (01:05:34):
Just across from England.

Speaker 2 (01:05:37):
And while he was doing that and the French economy
was spiraling downwards, Margatache was privatizing like crazy, you know,
shutting down the unions and inspiring a massive economic boom.
And Mitturan looked over the channel and could see that
in Great Britain and even verse course, he reprivatized the

(01:05:58):
banking system, and even though he was elected as a
socialist on a socialist platform, landed up being a market reformer.
And I think she inspired movements towards market reforms all
over Europe I mean, it's not accidental that in the
early nineteen nineties Sweden gives up on its socialist experiment

(01:06:22):
and you know, has a debt crisis and moves towards
liberalizing its economy and moving away from socialism finally, and
it happens the economy after economy, country after country, And
much of the inspiration for that was Thatcher and Reagan.
But Thatcher even more so because she had a bigger
challenge and she faced a parliamentary system that many other

(01:06:46):
countries could relate to because they had the same political system.
You know, they viewed America as more unique. Thatcher was
more consistent with the way their economies and their politics worked,
so she could really inspire them. All right, Wes got

(01:07:10):
youa late Do you have any recommendations and sources? And Thatcher,
I get the impatient. A lot of what's floating around
is not objective. Yeah, I mean, there's some biographies. I
don't have one to recommend right now, but to some
biographies that are probably pretty good. I have to admit
I used a lot of what I used was chat,

(01:07:31):
GPT and check PPT is pretty good. It's pretty good.
Now I know a lot so I guess the way
I asked, the questions and the kind of questions I
asked and where I went was pretty good. I also
asked chat Gipt not to use Wikipedia, which is generally
a good principle to have to tell chat Gipt not
to use Wikipedia because Wikipedia is completely promoted by a

(01:07:55):
leftist agenda on pretty much every topic.

Speaker 1 (01:07:59):
But but uh is uh is uh.

Speaker 2 (01:08:09):
Is pretty good and on on this uh you can
also find her books. She wrote three books describing her
years in as Prime Minister and describing her ideas. But yeah, again,
I found I found the the.

Speaker 1 (01:08:33):
A I to be pretty accurate, pretty accurate.

Speaker 2 (01:08:36):
I asked things like to what because I knew this
was true, the influence of Hyeche on her, the influence
of of of Joseph on her?

Speaker 1 (01:08:46):
I I I.

Speaker 2 (01:08:46):
Also asked, somebody is if somebody has a question here
about it once?

Speaker 1 (01:08:49):
Then uh? Yes.

Speaker 2 (01:08:53):
Stephen asked any evidence that Thatcher was in any way
influenced by iron Man and their answer is no, there
is no evidence, and at least Chachi but he couldn't
find anything. I also asked about Keith Joseph because I
thought maybe he was influenced by n Ran Iron Ran
but we can't find anything that suggests that.

Speaker 1 (01:09:13):
You know, there were.

Speaker 2 (01:09:14):
People in that circle around Keith Joseph, and around Hygeche,
and around the I e. A. And around the Adam
Smith Institute, which was also an institute that was founded
early in his her administration and provided a lot of
the a lot of the policy formula, formulas for what

(01:09:35):
what what it should what the concerted party should do. Uh,
there were they were all familiar with Rand and influenced
to some extent by iron Ran. But I can't find
any direct influence or any reason, any reason to believe
directly that I that either her or Keith Joseph had

(01:09:57):
read or referenced Irand directly they might have. Suddenly, Keyth
Joseph might have, but we don't have any evidence to
suggest he did. Hayek didn't like Iran, so that could
have been a negative influence on trying right on on

(01:10:21):
on her appeal, on making her appealing. All right, let's see,
thanks Steven.

Speaker 1 (01:10:30):
Michael.

Speaker 2 (01:10:31):
Thatcher and Reagan, despite their flaws, represented a narrow looch
back to the nineteenth century optimistic, benevolent forward thinking. They
never appealed to xenophobia and tribalism, to motivate voters.

Speaker 1 (01:10:46):
Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (01:10:47):
I mean, if you if you see Reagan's speeches, he
was very pro immigration, very pro American, very optimistic, very positive,
very forward looking.

Speaker 1 (01:10:56):
I mean he had other problems and and and so
did mat in the sense that I had a I
don't know that.

Speaker 2 (01:11:02):
A sense of life was that positive and and and you.

Speaker 1 (01:11:07):
Know, but she had this.

Speaker 2 (01:11:09):
She projected this real belief in human ability, in in
in being able to overcome, uh, in the responsibility of
any individual to make something of their own life. Remember,
she came from a modest background. Uh again, in compared
to pretty much every prime minister in in in British history.

(01:11:29):
She came from a modest background, and she believed you
could be successful, you could work hard, and you could achieve.
She was, She was smart, She had a scientific background,
rare in politics.

Speaker 1 (01:11:44):
And yeah, I mean I.

Speaker 2 (01:11:48):
She had that forward thinking, rational approach, which is rare
in politics certainly today. And and even in in that sense,
I think she was better than Again, she was better
than Reagan.

Speaker 1 (01:12:02):
She was more thoughtful of Reagan. She was going intellectual
than Reagan.

Speaker 2 (01:12:05):
She was far from perfect, but she was better than
almost anybody else out there. Stephen said, there was a
movie about her with Meryl Streep. I remember she says
something like, I will not end up an old lady
washing a cup in the sink, and that's exactly how
it ended. It felt like a naturalistic undercut thoughts. Yeah,

(01:12:29):
I mean the movie was very much about her, not
just a retirement, but laid in her retirement, very much
about her fading.

Speaker 1 (01:12:38):
It was very anti romantic.

Speaker 2 (01:12:41):
And it didn't really emphasize who she was and what
she had achieved.

Speaker 1 (01:12:46):
It was somewhat sad the way was presented.

Speaker 2 (01:12:50):
I don't think a life was sincerely said, but the
way it was presented, she was dying lady, and it
didn't come across as that. It was very natural, realistic,
very I think the whole movie, you know, undercut her character.
I mean, it wasn't complete. There was some glimpses of

(01:13:11):
the character, but it was negatively framed. It was negatively presented,
and the focus not on her her peak, not on
her strength, not on when she reshapes the world from
seventy nine maybe to the late nineties, but decline on
the health issue she has, on her loneliness when she's
kind of isolated politically.

Speaker 1 (01:13:35):
I think that's wrong.

Speaker 2 (01:13:39):
But look, I mean one of the great tragedies even
in the UK today is that nobody gives a credit.
Nobody gives a credit. Almost everybody thinks she was a
bad influence. Nobody remembers, nobody knows. And it's awful when
you talk about when you talk to people in the
UK today who it benefited enormously from Thatchers, from Thatcher's policies,

(01:14:02):
and how they despise.

Speaker 1 (01:14:04):
Her and they hate her and they think badly off her.

Speaker 2 (01:14:07):
It's really terrible and it's part of the move away
from markets. Daniel says, can a democratic society exist without capitalism? Well,
I mean we've got lots of democratic societies and none
of them have capitalism, are capitalists.

Speaker 1 (01:14:26):
So I don't think. I don't think democracy is consistent
with capitalism.

Speaker 2 (01:14:31):
I mean capitalism is, I understand it, a complete separation
of state from economics. Capitalism is where the government does
one thing, protect individual rights and leave you alone. Now,
you know, there are lots of there been lots of
socialists countries that are democratics. Sweden in the sixties and seventies,
Israel in their fifties and.

Speaker 1 (01:14:52):
Sixties and seventies.

Speaker 2 (01:14:56):
You know, on and off different countries in Western Europe,
they've had socialist running them and yet maintain their democracy.
But democracy is a majority vote, and capitalism cannot run
on a majority vote. Capitalisms the whole foundation of capitalism
is the idea of individual rights which are not democratic,

(01:15:22):
the idea of sticking to those individual rights that.

Speaker 1 (01:15:24):
You can't be voted away, and not being a democracy.

Speaker 2 (01:15:30):
You know, you need a constitutional republic to sustain capitalism.
Democracy people vote away the rights of others. It's too easy. Oh,
I mean, here's the important don't think of the world

(01:15:51):
today as democracy, as sorry as capitalism. The world today
is a mixed economy, lots and lots and lots and
lots and lots.

Speaker 1 (01:15:59):
Of government interventions and redistribution and some role for markets.
That's not capitalism.

Speaker 2 (01:16:06):
That is a mixed economy tilted towards socialism. Capitalism is
markets and the government there to protect that set.

Speaker 1 (01:16:18):
Right Oh w I thirty? Yeah, here, Ron, ask your
super check question at the end of your show and fight.
I know it's on my laptop.

Speaker 2 (01:16:25):
It's not on my computer here unless you can recreate
it in the chat.

Speaker 1 (01:16:31):
I don't have access to it.

Speaker 2 (01:16:32):
For some reason. It didn't save it here. I'm not
even sure it's going to be on my laptop, but
it might. Can you recreate the question? I'm happy to
answer it, not in you know, you don't have to
put money to it, just in the chat. Michael, when
is your debate on Christianity versus Western Civilization san Francisco?

Speaker 1 (01:16:51):
And who is your opponent?

Speaker 2 (01:16:52):
I don't know who my opponent is, but the debate
is on November twelfth, the date before my debate to
socialists in Colorado Springs. So November November twelfth in San Francisco.
More information in the days to come. Jacob, what is

(01:17:14):
the minimum amount of time needed for supermajority to make
sufficient changes to influence the masses to buy into some
free markets?

Speaker 1 (01:17:24):
I don't understand that. What is the.

Speaker 2 (01:17:26):
Minimum amount of time needed for supermajority to make sufficient
changes to influence the masses? But aren't the masses the superminjoity?

Speaker 1 (01:17:35):
I don't.

Speaker 2 (01:17:36):
I don't understand who the masses on who the super
majority is to buy into some free market? I know
long term can only be done philosophically. I mean, I
have no idea. I don't know. I mean I think
that the mass is generally a willing to be rather

(01:17:57):
to accept somebody radical like me Lay when things get really,
really bad, and then how long it takes for them
to accept the new system and to buy into it,
I don't know, And I don't know if they ever do,
and at the first opportunity they rebel against it and

(01:18:19):
shift their loyalty.

Speaker 1 (01:18:20):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:18:26):
Lay thirty eight says, can you explain in detail y
Argentina economy went from so good under Malay to now
getting a bailout from the US. So I've talked about this,
about this, and first we have to understand that Milay

(01:18:46):
can only do certain reforms, and certain reforms he can
do because he doesn't have parliament. Parliament is against him,
and in order to stick to constitutional government and to
stick to the principles, you just can't do it with
executive orders. Just like you know, we hope the constitution
will strained Trump. The Argentinian constitution restrains me Lay. So

(01:19:10):
a lot of the deregulation, a lot of the privatization,
a lot of the things that he wanted to do,
he never could do. Basically, what happened was a loss
of confidence in a very volatile economy when people lose
confidence in things getting better. It becomes a self fulfilling

(01:19:30):
prophecy because they behave in ways to make things worse.

Speaker 1 (01:19:36):
In this case, when Milay lost the election.

Speaker 2 (01:19:42):
The local elections by a margin far greater than anybody expected,
people lost confidence in his ability, in his ability to
actually deliver on all his promises and all the reforms necessary.

Speaker 1 (01:19:59):
And uh so, what they started to do.

Speaker 2 (01:20:06):
Was basically to sell the local currency uh and and
and to buy dollars. Whereas before they gained confidence in
the local currency, they weren't selling it indeed, and they
were willing to deposit their dollars into the banking system.
Uh this all got reversed after the election, what is
it a couple of months ago, and the consequence of

(01:20:28):
that was pulling your dollars out of the banks uh
and and trying to use the pesos, selling the pasos
to buy dollars. And that caused the pace or the
value the pace or the collapse to really go down
a lot, which causes causes inflation.

Speaker 1 (01:20:47):
I mean, it causes prices to rise.

Speaker 2 (01:20:49):
It causes people to the value of their wages to
go down because it can't buy as much, and people
just to feel insecure, which means less investment, which means
less hiring, which means less economic progress. Now wa me
Le was doing was already going to be bumpy. It's

(01:21:10):
not just one way it's going to be bumpy, it's
going to be noisy.

Speaker 1 (01:21:14):
And then that loss of confidence changed everything. The bailout
might not be necessary. If mi Lay.

Speaker 2 (01:21:25):
Wins in October twenty sixth, a week from now, then
he might not need the bailout because that will completely
change the sentiment. People will be much more confident in
his ability to follow up.

Speaker 1 (01:21:42):
They will have much more confidence in the peso.

Speaker 2 (01:21:44):
As a consequence, they will stop selling paesos and buying dollars,
and the peso's value will increase or stabilize at least,
and then me can go through the rest of the
forms and he'll do fine. It might be that the
United States might have to help him buy basically providing

(01:22:06):
him with a fund, or basically not providing with the fund.
I mean, what the US government has said is they're
willing to buy pesos to stabilize the price. Now, partially
by just saying they're willing to do it, the price
is stabilized because people know that if the Paesel declines,
the government, the US government will buy a bunch of

(01:22:27):
it and.

Speaker 1 (01:22:29):
Put dollars into play.

Speaker 2 (01:22:31):
The fact that they are willing to do that is
basically already stabilize the pesel. So I think that if
Malay does well on the twenty sixth, I think the
UGent in the economy will do fine, particularly if he
continues with the reforms, and he probably won't need the

(01:22:53):
US government to actually spend any money on this bailout.
Just having them there might be sufficient. It already, I
think is sufficient. Hopefully that explains that I don't have
more detail than that. Maybe at some point we can
invite one of my Gentinian economists to come on and
tell us more about what happened and what is about

(01:23:15):
to happen.

Speaker 1 (01:23:16):
Let's see what happens in the election next week. Paul,
did that cha bring religion to politics the way Reagan do? No? No, no,
she did not.

Speaker 2 (01:23:23):
Thatcher was very secular, as British politics is. I mean,
she might have had a certain religious spirit about her.
She might have had a attitude towards morality and hard
work that is partially based on kind of religious duty.
But she did not talk religion. She did not bring

(01:23:46):
religion into politics. I mean generally the UK is much
more secular than the United States, as is most of Europe.
So no, she didn't do what Reagan did, and in
that sense, she didn't do as much harm to the
conservative movement. She didn't do any harm to conservative movement.
The Conservative movement did harm to itself by moving away

(01:24:08):
from her policies starting in nineteen ninety, starting with her resignations,
John Major's and onwards. They've never had a prime minister
that was willing to go back to her ideas.

Speaker 1 (01:24:18):
Maybe Kemmy Badanock right now, who.

Speaker 2 (01:24:21):
Runs a conservative movement is more attuned with those ideas.
I think conservatives have been in a long time. But
I mean, and Conservatives have had super majorities. They could
have done whatever they want wanted, and they didn't reform anything,
and they didn't move towards market economy in any kind
of way, and they blew completely blew the majorities that

(01:24:44):
they had wasted them. If anything, some of those majorities
passed kind of the environmental regulations that are killing the UK,
which Thatcher would have objected to. So no, the problem
with Thatcher is that she was in a sense and
aberration within her own party, and that she didn't have

(01:25:07):
the support within the party that she needed to see continuity.
All right, guys, thank you to all the super chatters,
Thank you for your support, Thank you for everybody listening.

Speaker 1 (01:25:22):
I hope you enjoyed the show.

Speaker 2 (01:25:24):
You two can sponsor show on any topic you want,
as Alexis did. It's one thousand dollars and I'll talk
about whatever you want me to talk about, so please
consider doing that if you want, just contact me at
you run at your runbookshow dot com. You run at
you run books show dot com. I will see you
all tomorrow for another news show three pm East Coast

(01:25:46):
time I think three pm East Coast time, and in
the meantime, have a great evening.

Speaker 1 (01:25:52):
See you soon, guys. Bye everybody,

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Margaret Thatcher at 100 | Yaron Brook Show

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Margaret Thatcher at 100 | Yaron Brook Show