[PEN-L:5045] Re: Brits > Thatcherism

[Ellen Dannin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>]

On Fri, 12 May 1995, Robert Peter Burns wrote:

> Last summer I published a short article called "Global
> Thatcherism in the Light of the British Experience" . . .

> Rather, global Thatcherism is an ideological reflex of the global 
> restructuring of class relations, the effect of which is to homogenise 
> those relations along an international dimension. . . . . 

I found out how true this is when doing research in NZ on the Employment 
Contracts Act 1991, Thatcherism / Reagonomics / Rogernomics personified. 
I suppose I had assumed that those who were promoting the ECA and 
parallel legislation were doing so for instrumental reasons: to lower 
wages, increase employer hegemony, and the like.  This assumption that 
all ECA supporters felt this way was brought up short when I interviewed 
a very high ranking official in the New Zealand Employers Federation.  
When I asked her if the ECA ws performing as hoped for by its proponents, 
she answered emphatically yes.  When I asked was it improving 
unemployment (one of the goals advanced for the ECA before its enactment) 
and the economy in general, she responded that these were not proper 
measures of the  ECA. She said that the ECA must be measured solely on 
the grounds that it brings freedom.

This was all said in a tone of religious fervour (not trying to bash 
religions here), but it's the only analogy I can find.  I think this 
realisation -- and one reflected in Burns' excerpt -- is important to 
bear in mind when discussing these programs and their acolytes.  Some of 
them see this freedom as an absolute, not an instrumental value.

Ellen

Ellen J. Dannin
California Western School of Law
225 Cedar Street
San Diego, CA  92101
Phone:  619-525-1449
Fax:    619-696-9999