Thatcherism Is A Class Struggle From Above
THE article by Arthur Pickering (‘Thatcher’s lessons for Namibia’, The Namibian, 26 April) reminded us of an anecdote that involved the Queen of England. When the 2008 capitalist crash happened, that Queen asked some of the most eminent British economists how come they did not see it coming. They eventually wrote a response to her six months later and could still not provide a proper explanation.
So, what Pickering admires so much as Thatcherism’s successes ended up as the worst capitalist crisis ever and the supposedly wise capitalist economists could not even predict that it was going to happen. In fact, the worst of this capitalist crisis is still to come and, if anything, we are on the brink of World War III as US imperialism is at an advanced stage of planning a war against its main economic competitor, China.
So, as far as 99 per cent of humanity and Mother Earth are concerned, it is urgent that we get rid of the capitalist nightmare that Thatcherism represents. However, Pickering seems to argue from the point of view of the one per cent.
Margaret Thatcher was the most hated British prime minister of the 20th century. Millions of her working class victims loathed and despised her until the end. Working class people in former mining and industrial communities celebrated her death – they still remain victims of Thatcherism after the historic 1984-5 strike there.
Thatcher’s neo-liberal policies destroyed millions of manufacturing jobs, slashed public spending and devastated Britain’s industrial heartlands. Through privatisation, many British public companies were sold off very cheaply. With Ronald Reagan, Thatcher took these capitalist policies global and laid the foundation for today’s economic crisis.
Thatcher refused to support sanctions against the apartheid regime and condemned Nelson Mandela and the ANC as ‘terrorists’. She praised the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet for ‘bringing democracy to Chile’. One of her defining moments was ordering the sinking of the Argentine cruiser General Belgrano with the loss of 321 lives during the Falklands War in May 1982.
However, it is still amazing that Pickering compares, in an a-historical manner, Britain, that benefitted from centuries of colonialism and imperialism, to Tanzania, a small country crippled by colonialism. In any case, the focus of ‘African socialism’ on the peasantry, instead of the proletariat, was a huge mistake.
Nevertheless, Thatcherism is indeed a great example of what the renowned sociologist, James Petras, calls class-struggle-from-above-and-outside. This refers to the class struggle organised and directed by the ruling elite – via the (capitalist) state – to enhance the wealth and power of capital - at the expense of the working class. This class-struggle-from-above-and-outside is waged in boardrooms, stock markets, central banks, executive branches of government, parliaments and international institutions. This is what Pickering seems to admire.
Pickering promotes the extreme individualism of the (upper) middle class. But socialism simply means social equality. Does it mean that Pickering does not believe in social equality? As for Pickering’s adoration of Thatcherism, does it imply that he also admires British imperialism and neo-liberal capitalism?
Incidentally, another lesson to the feudal Queen of England is that only Marxism can explain what is going on in the world economy – no other ideological framework is capable of doing it. The bourgeois economists or social scientists are most certainly unable to do it.
And, of course, according to Marxism, the class struggle of the working class comes from below. This is the pivotal lesson to the Namibian working class – take forward the class-struggle-from-below. The much celebrated ‘peace and stability’ of Namibia means that the class-struggle-from-above-and-outside is succeeding for the ruling elite.
S McCarthy,
Walvis Bay