Hmmm... that doesn't make much sense.
The UK was in terrible economic shape before Thatcher.
The UK was in terrible economic shape before Thatcher.
It was profitable of course! But not for the 99% of the people.
For example a combination of very high inflation (above 15% pa for the 4 years between 1974 and 1977[1]) combined with huge strikes by unions led to incidents like the "three day week"[2] (where the conservative UK government rationed electricity to businesses: they could only use it 3 days per week) and the "Winter of Discontent"[3] (where the Labour government failed to reach a wage control agreement with unions, leading to more strikes and the Thatcher government).
Official unemployment figures throughout the 1970's look much better than today (eg, 5-6% unemployment rather than ~7.5% now), but that doesn't take into account the fact that many were not being paid because of strike action, and also that the high inflation meant people were chronically underpaid (hence the strikes).
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/6729683.stm is worth reading to get some idea of just how bad it was.
[1] http://safalra.com/other/historical-uk-inflation-price-conve...
I also don't want to say that everything was good before Thatcher or that a socialistic approach is always better or even good. But what I wanted to say, that many of the long term results of Thatcherism are hurting the country till today, even when it was brought out of economic decline.
I think, that neither socialism nor pure thinking that capitalism and market will "just make it all right" work in the long run.
The results of "market makes it alright" are visible in the sweat shops of the 3rd world countries. In the western countries we have a long tradition of market regulation and that is our luck -- but it seems we are running out of luck.
It's not at all clear to me that it was Thatcher's amazing economic policies that turned the economy around rather than the boom years of North Sea oil.
Even if Thatcher's policies did stimulate the economy at the time, from where we're sitting now, what is clear is that that stimulus was not sustainable, and that all that privatisation and the Big Bang did was borrow from the future to splash the cash in the then-present.
Many things Thatcher did were terrible, but at the same time (for example) it's difficult to argue that a national government should be in the business of running road transport for the country[1]. There's a reasonable argument that some utilities work best in state ownership in some cases, but many of the other things that were run by the government prior to Thatcher were complete disasters.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Transport_Commission
It looks like under Thatcher got inflation under control, unemployment rose, then fell (similar to the US during the same time period) and the economy had a run of growth from '81 to '90 that peaked near 5%.
Not too shabby when you look at the 10 years prior when inflation was 25% and the economy shrank from '74-76.
Britain was regarded as a "sick man of Europe" before Thatcher took office.
What is the impact on the people and the state in general? Which factors are also important in this time.
The thing is, that economic bad times change with better times -- even with no change at all in politics. To consider every time a success of the leading party is often times just statistical brainwashing.
The Germans also had a bigger raise in economy with the opposite politics.
Also look how the long term results are, since the Thatcherian politics are still followed by the successors. The privatization of many areas like railway and water services resulted in worse quality of service. Also the UK today has nearly killed of all its industry base. Instead they have only left their banks, so they are largely susceptible now to blackmail of this sector, that is the reason why the banking sector can not be reorganized in Europe, since it is blocked by the veto of the British.
What is left is a poor leftover of capitalism.
Of course it is white-washed by statistical figures that always skip the negatives, since the advocates of unregulated capitalism want to prove their point.
"unemployment rose, then fell"
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=uk+unemployment+1984+to...
1970-1979, unemployment was mostly below 5%. It was about 7% after it "fell" post-Thatcher, when it started rising again in 1991. It then fell again, finally getting back to pre-Thatcher levels only sometime post 2000 - where it stayed until the 2009 crash.
"[T]he economy had a run of growth from '81 to '90 that peaked near 5%.
"Not too shabby when you look at the 10 years prior when inflation was 25% and the economy shrank from '74-76."
That's pretty cherrypicky. Let's get a slightly broader view:
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=uk+real+gdp+per+capita+...
The economy shrank from '74-'76; it also shrank '79-'81 and '90-'91. The years '71-'80 peaked in '73 at over 7% growth (for which the '74-'76 slump may well have been a correction). I'm not sure I'd call it shabby, but I'm not sure it's great, especially with the high unemployment rate.
'Britain was regarded as a "sick man of Europe" before Thatcher took office.'
I'm aware of the perception, and the shifts therein. I was curious as to the accuracy of it.