The problem with socialism

The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money

Margaret Thatcher

The quote casts socialism as a form of government that continuously expropriates private capital until all the industry in the country has been nationalised, or until the country’s economy has been run into the ground, whichever comes first.

Attribution

While the quote has been simplified, it does reflect a statement made by Margaret Thatcher during an interview with journalist Llew Gardner for Thames Television’s ‘This Week’ program on 5 February 1976 (a year after Mrs. Thatcher won the leadership of the opposition Conservative Party, and three years before she became prime minister).

Llew Gardner: “There are those nasty critics, of course, who suggest that you don’t really want to bring the Labour Party down at the moment. Life is a bit too difficult in the country, and that … leave them to sort the mess out and then come in with the attack later … say next year.”

Margaret Thatcher: “I would much prefer to bring them down as soon as possible. I think they’ve made the biggest financial mess that any government’s ever made in this country (England) for a very long time, and Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess.
They always run out of other people’s money. It’s quite a characteristic of them.
They then start to nationalise everything, and people just do not like more and more nationalisation, and they’re now trying to control everything by other means. They’re progressively reducing the choice available to ordinary people.”

A woman of convictions, Thatcher thought the unprincipled in government deserved to take a fall because they were too afraid to take a stand.
She was more interested in doing what she thought was right than what was politically palatable, as evidenced in this well-known remark:

“To me, consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies in search of something in which no-one believes, but to which no-one objects.”

At a policy meeting once, she famously pulled out a copy of F. A. Hayek’s The Constitution of Liberty from her handbag, slammed it down on the table and declared, “This is what we believe!”

Margaret Thatcher was also a fan of Ayan Rand’s Atlas Shrugged and would give people she liked a copy, for them to keep.

Here are some more remarks from a truly remarkable woman, who sacrificed for the betterment of England.

“The economic success of the Western world is a product of its moral philosophy and practice. The economic results are better because the moral philosophy is superior. It is superior because it starts with the individual, with his uniqueness, his responsibility, and his capacity to choose.
Surely this is infinitely preferable to the socialist-statist philosophy which sets up a centralized economic system to which the individual must conform, which subjugates him, directs him and denies him the right to free choice.
Choice is the essence of ethics: if there were no choice, there would be no ethics, no good, no evil; good and evil have meaning only insofar as man is free to choose.”

“In our philosophy the purpose of the life of the individual is not to be the servant of the State and its objectives, but to make the best of his talents and qualities.
The sense of being self-reliant, of playing a role within the family, of owning one’s own property, of paying one’s way, are all part of the spiritual ballast which maintains responsible citizenship and provides the solid foundation from which people look around to see what more they might do, for others and for themselves.
That is what we mean by a moral society; not a society where the State is responsible for everything, and no-one is responsible for the State.”

“Once you give people the idea that all this can be done by the State, and that it is somehow second-best or even degrading to leave it to private people… then you will begin to deprive human beings of one of the essential ingredients of humanity—personal moral responsibility.
You will in effect dry up in them the milk of human kindness. If you allow people to hand over to the State all their personal responsibility, the time will come, indeed it is close at hand, when what the taxpayer is willing to provide for the good of humanity will be seen to be far less than what the individual used to be willing to give from love of his neighbour.
So do not be tempted to identify virtue with collectivism. I wonder whether the State services would have done as much for the man who fell among thieves as the Good Samaritan did for him?”

A final thought to ponder for where Australia is in 2024.

“I think we have gone through a period when too many children and people have been given to understand ‘I have a problem, it is the Government’s job to cope with it!’ or ‘I have a problem, I will go and get a grant to cope with it!’ ‘I am homeless, the Government must house me!’ and so they are casting their problems on society and who is society? There is no such thing!
There are individual men and women and there are families, and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first.
It is our duty to look after ourselves and then also to help look after our neighbour and life is a reciprocal business and people have got the entitlements too much in mind without the obligations.
There is no such thing as society. There is living tapestry of men and women and the beauty of that tapestry, and the quality of our lives will depend upon how much each of us is prepared to take responsibility for ourselves and each of us prepared to turn around and help by our own efforts those who are unfortunate.”