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Mar= garet Thatcher

Champio= n of free minds and markets, she helped topple the welfare state and make the wo= rld safer for capitalism

She was the catalyst= who set in motion a series of interconnected events that gave a revolutionary twist= to the century's last two decades and helped mankind end the millennium on a n= ote of hope and confidence. The triumph of capitalism, the almost universal acceptance of the market as indispensable to prosperity, the collapse of So= viet imperialism, the downsizing of the state on nearly every continent and in almost every country in the world — Margaret Thatcher played a part in all those transformations, and it is not easy to see how any would have occurred without her.

Born in 1925, Margar= et Hilda Roberts was an enormously industrious girl. The daughter of a Grantham shopkeeper, she studied on scholarship, worked her way to Oxford and took two degrees, in chemist= ry and law. Her fascination with politics led her into Parliament at age 34, when = she argued her way into one of the best Tory seats in the country, Finchley in north London. Her quick mind (and faster mouth) led her up through the Tory ranks, and by= age 44 she got settled into the "statutory woman's" place in the Cabi= net as Education Minister, and that looked like the summit of her career. But Thatcher was, and is, notoriously lucky. Her case is awesome testimony to t= he importance of sheer chance in history. In 1975 she challenged Edward Heath = for the Tory leadership simply because the candidate of the party's right wing abandoned the contest at the last minute. Thatcher stepped into the breach. When she went into Heath's office to tell him her decision, he did not even bother to look up. "You'll lose," he said. "Good day to you."

She chose her issues carefully — and, it emerged, luckily. The legal duels she took on ear= ly in her tenure as Prime Minister sounded the themes that made her an enduring leader: open markets, vigorous debate and loyal alliances. Among her first fights: a struggle against Britain's out-of-control trade unions, which had destroyed three governments in succession. Thatcher turned the nation's anti-union feeling into a handsome parliamentary majority and a mandate to restrict union privileges by a seri= es of laws that effectively ended Britain's trade-union problem once and for all. "Who governs Britain?" she famously a= sked as unions struggled for power. By 1980, everyone knew the answer: Thatcher governs.

Once the union citad= el had been stormed, Thatcher quickly discovered that every area of the economy was open to judicious reform. Even as the rest of Europe= toyed with socialism and state ownership, she set about privatizing the nationalized industries, which had been hitherto sacrosanct, no matter how inefficient. It worked. British Airways, an embarrassingly slovenly national carrier that very seldom showed a profit, was privatized and transformed in= to one of the world's best and most profitable airlines. British Steel, which = lost more than a billion pounds in its final years as a state concern, became the largest steel company in Europe.

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But Thatcher became = a world figure for more than just her politics. She combined a flamboyant willpower with evident femininity. It attracted universal attention, especially after= she led Britain to a spect= acular military victory over Argentina in 1982. She understood that politicians had to give military people clear orders about ends, then leave them to get on with the means. Still, she cou= ld not bear to lose men, ships or planes. "That's why we have extra ships= and planes," the admirals had to tell her, "to make good the losses." Fidelity, like courage, loyalty and perseverance, were cardin= al virtues to her, which she possessed in the highest degree. People from all = over the world began to look at her methods and achievements closely, and to see= k to imitate them.

One of her earliest admirers was Ronald Reagan, who achieved power 18 months after she did. He too began to reverse the Ratchet Effect in the U.S. by effective deregulation, tax cutting and opening up wider market opportunities for free enterprise. Reagan liked to listen to Thatcher's var= ious lectures on the virtues of the market or the minimal state. "I'll reme= mber that, Margaret," he said. She listened carefully to his jokes, tried to get the point and laughed in the right places.

They turned their mutual affection into a potent foreign policy partnership. With Reagan and Thatcher in power, the application of judicious pressure on= the Soviet state to encourage it to reform or abolish itself, or to implode, be= came an admissible policy. Thatcher warmly encouraged Reagan to rearm and thereby bring Russia to the negotiating table. She shared his view that <= st1:City w:st=3D"on">Moscow ruled an "evil empire,"= ; and the sooner it was dismantled the better. Together with Reagan she pushed Mikhail Gorbachev to pursue his perestroika policy to its limits and so fat= ally to undermine the self-confidence of the Soviet elite.

Historians will argu= e hotly about the precise role played by the various actors who brought about the e= nd of Soviet communism. But it is already clear that Thatcher has an important place in this huge event.

It was the beginning= of a new historical epoch. All the forces that had made the 20th century such a = violent disappointment to idealists--totalitarianism, the gigantic state, the crush= ing of individual choice and initiative--were publicly and spectacularly defeat= ed. Ascendant instead were the values that Thatcher had supported in the face of sometimes spectacular opposition: free markets and free minds. The world en= ters the 21st century and the 3rd millennium a wiser place, owing in no small pa= rt to the daughter of a small shopkeeper, who proved that nothing is more effective than willpower allied to a few clear, simple and workable ideas.<= o:p>

http://bg.wikipedia.org/

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