Margaret Thatcher And The Start Of Of Neoliberalism

The concept of neoliberalism is the idea that if society changes from a socialist society based on a welfare state to an economical society then society will grow. Neoliberalism started to really take place with Margaret Thatcher in 1979, the tax cuts for the rich, privatisation, the suppressing of the trade unions, neoliberal policies were imposed through the IMF, world bank and the world trade organisations, often these policies were imposed without democratic consent. From the 1500’s to the 1800’s there was the enlightenment period in society this was when the classical society existed, modernity arose in the 1800’s when the industrial revolution took place, the start of the modern society was a growth of social and economical developments, the growth of market, the improved medical services, the rise into a modern society began the rise of capitalism.

1945 was the end of World War two, labour the party in power faced great problems, the war caused Britain to build up mass amounts of debt, the economy was in crisis, labour began the nationalization of railroads, road transport, coal mines, docks and harbours, the production of electrical power and the Bank of England. Late modernity is when labour brought the start of the NHS, welfare system and education. The welfare state was based upon the beverage report, the beverage report provided principles to overcome poverty and was seen as the road to reconstruction, overcoming the giants was the focus of the government in 1945 and has remained important through the twentieth century. Beverage created the five giants, these are to represent the strains on society, Want, Disease; disease highlighted the issues around sanitation, housing, nutrition and local governments, more people were dying from poor households, this is where the NHS came in, there has been major rises over the post-war period, life expectancy has risen and the fights against major health risks such as lung cancer and infectious diseases. Ignorance: ignorance is societies lack of education. Squalor: squalor is the identification of poverty, beverage argued for a council house programme and finally Idleness which full employment is 97% of workers in work defined Beverage (Armstrong, 2017). This was to help rebuild the country after world war two, also known as the golden era, society had full employment and security.

In 1973 the crises year arrived with the cold war between Russia and America (Nuclear arm threats) and the oil crises which caused society to have a 3 day week, that moved on to 1979 when Margaret Thatcher won the election changing society, the privatisation of public utilities (trains, gas, electric), the rise of trading/free markets and minimal government intervention, the concept of neoliberalism started which is the change from a sociological society to an economical society, along with Margaret Thatcher came Thatcherism, Thatcherism is the belief that the state won’t change social issues but that markets will; private choice is preferred, setting money targets and reducing the publics borrowing requirement. Thatcherism’s concept was simplistic and was essentially there to cut costs and reduce expenditure with failure to consider the quality of public services and what they face with rising demands (Jackson, 2015). Thatcherism’s idea of free market neoliberalism effectively ended the corporate state (also known as post war accommodation), to which the unions and business enables the form of state managed capitalism to form. Margaret Thatcher’s ideas are highly based on keynenism, Keynenism Economics is the idea that free markets automatically provide full employment justifying government intervention with public policies which aim to provide full employment and stability, Keynes argues that insufficient demand could lead to extended periods of unemployment and that state interventions is important to moderate the business cycle. Keynes ideas were scrutinized, and some contemporary thinkers believed that Business cycle is part of nature and government intervention could worsen the progress to recovery. Finally, from the 1990’s was the start of liquid modernity, this is when society is constantly changing, technology and communications, society became unstable and has continued to do so throughout, we now live society filled with false realities through television and social networks.

Globalisation is a worldwide movement of economic, financial, trade and communications, it describes how countries interact and integrate with one another. Economic globalisation is the way countries are becoming one big global economy, which makes international trading easier. Globalisation has resulted in increasing competitiveness in global markets, it is broadly acknowledged that the rise of globalisation has come to light through the impact of new technology, transactions and the policy decisions to change national barriers to international economic transactions, World trade has grown significantly since 1986. The problems with globalisation are that is should raise the economic growth in poor countries, reducing poverty rather than raising inequality, globalisation can result in heavy social costs. Along with Globalisation comes the Network economy which is the connection of countries and individuals who benefit of one another increasing productions and wealth of countries. Network economy has advantages and disadvantages, a network economy is beneficial die to larger labour pools and savings on costs although dominance from one country having a larger contribution in these pools than another can cause an imbalance in power (Investopedia, 2019). Consumerism is an economic and social order the same as globalisation it is the involvement of trade, marketing and an economic movement which encourages the purchase of goods or services, consumerism has grown rapidly through the twentieth century of which several factors contributed to, technology innovations raised the output and reduced unit costs significantly, some criticisms of consumerism are focused on the issue of people spending more money that they need to. People in society judge their own value and social significance from the property they own, this can link to the strain theory. Consumerism causes society to believe they are content although there is no rational reason for these beliefs.

Neoliberal Economist Beck (1968) and Stigler (1970) argue that criminals are individuals who commit crime based on a the cost and benefits, the costs being the consequences of the crime committed, but to reduce crime the punishments needs to be harsher, neoliberal states try to manage consequences of crime problems, but both crime and social polices target the poor and marginalised people in society as a way to try control them and neutralise the threat they have to society and those who are targeted are often users of the welfare system and often the poor and vulnerable are the targets of penal interventions rather than the wealthy, such as people who commit white collar crimes are rarely the target of these interventions. Managerialism is used to measure performance results such as how well crime and punishment is managed. Managerialism is referred to as a distinctive set of ideological practices which underpin emergent political settlement by Clark and Newman (1997). Reforms to the public services such as the police have been highly influenced through managerialism through performance management the goals of crime reduction and detection management, particularly through neighbourhood police such as PCSO’s. There are consequences to these regimes used for managing, these regimes are unstable and uncertain based on bureau-professionalism and local democracy, yet managerialism has progressed to be very influential with its significant role in the neoliberal structuring of the state.

The neoliberal punishments are argued to be identified as a neoliberal penalty thesis a major contemporary issue by Nicola Lacey (2013), it is typically argued that neoliberal policies are distinguished in three main trends; increasing use of punishment focusing on longer terms of imprisonment increasing the individuals for offending, the excoriation of the welfare system due to the failures to correct offenders and the higher focus on using punishment as a protection for citizens. Neoliberal punishments can be seen as economically steered due to elements such as cost benefit analysis and private prisons and electronic monitoring which coincide with the marketing orientation. Theoretical neoliberal interpretations are based on five conditions and are believed that these are necessary for crime to occur; Labelling, only treated as a crime if it is labelled one, the culture of consumerism makes reporting property crime more likely, increases in property crime helped Thatcher and fuelled politics of law. Motives: crime cannot occur unless a motive to commit has been formed (actus reus). Means; a motivated person with the potential to commit crime with capacity, Robert Merton’s extension of Anomie is the most plausible account, offenders are trying to reach their aspirations, inequality and materialism are the problems which count towards motivation for offending and the advantages of technology and globalisation increase reason to commit crimes and provide new forms of offending such as with the use of technology rather that theft people can now revert to internet fraud, identity theft, the selling of drug, weapons and trafficking of people can now be done through the internet. Opportunity: consumerism is key reason for offenders committing, the need to have makes cars, TV’s, phones and property are tempting targets for crime. Absence controls has two points to it, Formal control; the neoliberal influence to toughening consequences of offending yet crime rates are still more likely to rise quicker than the rate of police officers. Informal: criminologists stress that a key part of offending is impulse control, taking the wait out of wanting something, yet again forced upon society to have better things than one another through consumerism.

The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank (created in 1944) institutions both share the same goal to raise standards of living in selected countries, with the IMF focusing on the macroeconomic issue and the world bank focusing on long term poverty reduction and economic development, the goal of both institutions was to build framework for economic cooperation and develop a more stable and global economy. The IMF promotes cooperation and provides policy advice and development support which helps to build countries and maintain strong economies (IMF, 2019). The world bank promotes a long term economic development and a reduction in poverty providing technical and financial support to assist countries to reform such as new schools or health centres, they also assist in providing water, electricity and protecting the environment, the world banks assistance is normally long term, funded by both member country contributions and through bond issuance. These where both created after World War two, the IMF has mass amounts of power and this shows when counties get into financial trouble and are in need of funds yet before the IMF make these loans they impose conditions on the country for it to make structural differences to the economy, also known as SAPs, these SAPs are highly neoliberal (Mit.edu, 2019). Conceptions of the economic growth and wellbeing with the world bank are moulded by western values and rarely take into account cultural concerns, avoiding to loan money to high poverty/third world counties.

In conclusion the neoliberal turn has had a large impact on society from the end of world was two, not all being positive, on one hand society has built up from being a rock bottom after the war but now society has become an unsteady society. Margaret Thatcher said there was no alternative, consumerism has been a heavy sign of why people commit crime, through the cause of a western society. The attempt to reduce crime rates seems to be failing with more giving people more means to commit crime. The five giants created by Beverage represent the strains on society, Want, Disease; disease highlighted the issues around sanitation, housing, nutrition and local governments, more people were dying from poor households and the NHS (Armstrong, 2017), unfortunately right wing parties such as the conservatives are trying to privatise the very thing that helped to rebuild Britain. The neoliberal punishments are argued to be identified as a neoliberal penalty thesis a major contemporary issue by Nicola Lacey (2013), it is typically argued that neoliberal policies are distinguished in three main trends; increasing use of punishment focusing on longer terms of imprisonment increasing the individuals for offending, yet whether these are risen or not wont make a difference when there is mass decrease in police officers.

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