Simon Jenkins: This Thatcher Mythology

by Liberty and Power

There is a widespread belief among libertarians in particular and advocates of the free market in general that Margaret Thatcher may be adequately described as a classical liberal, if not a libertarian. She was not. She implemented some reforms that took Britain in a classically liberal direction and other reforms that took Britain in a decidedly non-libertarian direction.

Simon Jenkins provides an insightful analysis of Mrs. Thatcher's time in office.

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William Marina - 3/15/2009

I thought the fact that I am associated with the Independent Institute speaks for itself, but perhaps I should have spelled that out.

I had in mind certain other Institutes that I chose not to name in my own case, but some others that are obviously quite partisan, both left & right.

No doubt tenure can, and has been, abused. When I was under attack in the '60s for both Civil Rights and Vietnam protests, I did not have it, but survived because of support from some who did.

Robert Higgs - 3/13/2009

I find your comment a rather odd one, Bill, in its presumption that anyone associated with a think tank must be compelled to give assent to every position it takes, whereas a university professor is free to be his own man.

I have been associated with the Independent Institute for the past 15 years as a senior fellow. To my knowledge, the Independent Institute does not take positions with which all must go along; rather, every individual associated with it speaks for himself. (We explicitly state this principle with regard to the contributors to our quarterly journal, which I edit.) In my years with the Institute, I have never been directed to take a certain position on anything, and I am sure that David Theroux, the president, would find the suggestion that he dictates to the fellows to be startling and offensive.

Several years ago, a small flap arose in which some news sources, including the New York Times, claimed that the Institute had taken a particular position on antitrust laws because it had received some financial support from a certain corporation. This claim reflected nothing but willful and malicious ignorance of how the Institute operates, and ideological bias, to boot. It often strikes me that reporters routinely assume that every spokeman for anything, unless he be a government spokesman, is bought and paid for. The opposite seems to me to approximate the truth more closely.

In contrast to my experience with a think tank, during the 26 years I was a member of various university and college faculties, I was commonly put under pressure to act and speak in certain ways -- usually in the service of political correctness, but sometimes in even more idiotic ways, to accommodate various sorts of student irresponsibility. By now, everyone surely understands that faculty members are anything but free to be their own persons in these stultifying academic settings. I admit I was always a rather bad boy myself, which helps to explain, I suppose, why I was eventually regurgitated from academia.

William Marina - 3/13/2009

Mark, an excellent piece!
Much the same could be said about that old New Dealer, Hollywood union guy, turned GE salesman, & politician, Ronald Reagan.
Keeping an independent outlook is very difficult for any would-be public intellectual. My own modest experience over almost 40 years in becoming even peripherally involved with various Think Tanks of a radical-conservo-libertarian outlook, busy building ideologies, is that sooner or later the TT will take positions, either on domestic or foreign policy issues, on which one finds it difficult to go along. That is one virtue of university tenure over having to take a position at one of these TTs that have come to dominate the political landscape today.