Well researched article but I don’t buy the source of blame. The West is not collapsing because of past actions by Reagan and Thatcher to favor family values and the free market while eschewing large government redistribution programs. No, the West is collapsing because of disintegrated culture caused by lax immigration policies that don’t promote integration and infiltrative postcolonial social engineering campaigns
that use unaccountable bureacracies like Universities to push Anti-Western propaganda. Leaders are now Activists demanding the State redistribute “cultural and social capital” by creating an illiberal, intolerant Identity Hierarchy as a form of reparatory justice. Universities now reject the idea of merit and competition as a force of progress and instead promote doublethink like Identity as a site of both oppression and strength. What’s the end goal? Certainly not social cohesion.
It’s an environment designed to encourage reckless spending in the form Public-Private wealth transfers to what the State determines are “worthy causes” leading to excess money printing creating inflation. In this form of Corporate Cronyism the “State Partners” are Lobbyists favored by virtue of their promotion of “State interests.” And by State Interests, I mean the interests of the people running the State. Add in decades of excess government spending on counterproductive nation building and you’ve got yourself a dysfunctional spoils system that reproduces failure and continually justifies more transfer payments as a remedy for that same failure.
Well said. His notion that “the public sector was abandoned” is sheer junk. With tax at a seventy year high and the NHS more bloated than ever, the public sector has been indulged, embraced, canonised and corrupted. As you say, the real damage has been inflicted not by neo-Cons, although they have much to answer for, nor by neo-liberals, who actually did much good, but by neo-Marxists, who opened the borders of countries whose culture they proceeded to denigrate and dismantle, making assimilation impossible and guaranteeing tension. There lies the seed of our destruction, there we find the origin of our decline. That the learned professor can ignore all this testifies only to the sturdiness of his “bien pensant” blinkers.
The most pernicious piece of legislation ever fostered on this country (UK) is the wretched ‘Commission for Racial Equality’ now renamed the ‘Equality and Human Rights Commission’!
Established by a Labour Government in 1976 its first chairman just had to be a ‘bien pensant’Tory, the late Sir David Lane.
At the time the late Lord Denning described its powers as being like those of the “days of the Inquisition “.
With an annual budget of close to £20 million it continuously stokes the fires of racial discord and should have been disbanded years ago! But sadly even the late late Lady Thatcher felt unable to act.
We are now living with the consequences.
After reading the first paragraph, I made a bet with myself that the content of the most upvoted would be thus reply. You have to give it to the big government totalitarian types. They will throw any sort of argument at the wall just to see the splatter. My guess is they actually believe this stuff.
Well said. His notion that “the public sector was abandoned” is sheer junk. With tax at a seventy year high and the NHS more bloated than ever, the public sector has been indulged, embraced, canonised and corrupted. As you say, the real damage has been inflicted not by neo-Cons, although they have much to answer for, nor by neo-liberals, who actually did much good, but by neo-Marxists, who opened the borders of countries whose culture they proceeded to denigrate and dismantle, making assimilation impossible and guaranteeing tension. There lies the seed of our destruction, there we find the origin of our decline. That the learned professor can ignore all this testifies only to the sturdiness of his “bien pensant” blinkers.
The most pernicious piece of legislation ever fostered on this country (UK) is the wretched ‘Commission for Racial Equality’ now renamed the ‘Equality and Human Rights Commission’!
Established by a Labour Government in 1976 its first chairman just had to be a ‘bien pensant’Tory, the late Sir David Lane.
At the time the late Lord Denning described its powers as being like those of the “days of the Inquisition “.
With an annual budget of close to £20 million it continuously stokes the fires of racial discord and should have been disbanded years ago! But sadly even the late late Lady Thatcher felt unable to act.
We are now living with the consequences.
After reading the first paragraph, I made a bet with myself that the content of the most upvoted would be thus reply. You have to give it to the big government totalitarian types. They will throw any sort of argument at the wall just to see the splatter. My guess is they actually believe this stuff.
Well researched article but I don’t buy the source of blame. The West is not collapsing because of past actions by Reagan and Thatcher to favor family values and the free market while eschewing large government redistribution programs. No, the West is collapsing because of disintegrated culture caused by lax immigration policies that don’t promote integration and infiltrative postcolonial social engineering campaigns
that use unaccountable bureacracies like Universities to push Anti-Western propaganda. Leaders are now Activists demanding the State redistribute “cultural and social capital” by creating an illiberal, intolerant Identity Hierarchy as a form of reparatory justice. Universities now reject the idea of merit and competition as a force of progress and instead promote doublethink like Identity as a site of both oppression and strength. What’s the end goal? Certainly not social cohesion.
It’s an environment designed to encourage reckless spending in the form Public-Private wealth transfers to what the State determines are “worthy causes” leading to excess money printing creating inflation. In this form of Corporate Cronyism the “State Partners” are Lobbyists favored by virtue of their promotion of “State interests.” And by State Interests, I mean the interests of the people running the State. Add in decades of excess government spending on counterproductive nation building and you’ve got yourself a dysfunctional spoils system that reproduces failure and continually justifies more transfer payments as a remedy for that same failure.
David Webb
8 months ago
It’s very odd that such a thoughtful article by an eminent academic should begin with a comment on Margaret Thatcher that would sound banal if coming from a teenage activist.
Surely Professor Moyn has read the whole interview (for a women’s weekly magazine published in 1987) … https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/106689
Thatcher was stating the obvious link between entitlements and obligations – how such straightforward logic leads to a ‘sense of decay’ rather escapes me.
Thank you for posting that link. “No such thing as society” is so often misunderstood that you wonder if it isn’t actually being deliberately misrepresented.
Agreed. For those who will not follow your link to the entire article (recommend it!) here is the relevant excerpt:
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 …
Again, the full interview is here: https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/106689
Thank you for posting that link. “No such thing as society” is so often misunderstood that you wonder if it isn’t actually being deliberately misrepresented.
Agreed. For those who will not follow your link to the entire article (recommend it!) here is the relevant excerpt:
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 …
Again, the full interview is here: https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/106689
Thank you for pointing this out so clearly and referencing it. One of the most misused partial filletings of what the lady said
David Webb
8 months ago
It’s very odd that such a thoughtful article by an eminent academic should begin with a comment on Margaret Thatcher that would sound banal if coming from a teenage activist.
Surely Professor Moyn has read the whole interview (for a women’s weekly magazine published in 1987) … https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/106689
Thatcher was stating the obvious link between entitlements and obligations – how such straightforward logic leads to a ‘sense of decay’ rather escapes me.
Graeme
8 months ago
Yet *another* UnHerd article that misquotes Mrs Thatcher’s statement. At least this one includes the second part of the sentence, typically omitted. Did the writer live through the 1980s? Was it perfect? No. But is that era the source of the degenerate corruption that is destroying every civilised value in front of our eyes, today? Don’t be ridiculous. We were a robust, open-minded and outgoing country, until Blair decided to rub our noses in what has become our future.
Graeme
8 months ago
Yet *another* UnHerd article that misquotes Mrs Thatcher’s statement. At least this one includes the second part of the sentence, typically omitted. Did the writer live through the 1980s? Was it perfect? No. But is that era the source of the degenerate corruption that is destroying every civilised value in front of our eyes, today? Don’t be ridiculous. We were a robust, open-minded and outgoing country, until Blair decided to rub our noses in what has become our future.
Ethniciodo Rodenydo
8 months ago
“Margaret Thatcher’s insistence that “there is no such thing as society, only individual men and women, and families” has now led. The public sector was abandoned, as if individuals and families could make it on their own.”
What a dishonest load of BS. And the author masquerades as a university Chancellor and Professor of Law and History at Yale University, god help us
Thatcher’s point was that people have responsibilities and you cannot simply dump your responsibilities and expect the state to step in and pick up the tab.
As to the public sector being abandoned, it is the one thing that continues to grow an grow whatever the economic climate with those people in the real economy working harder and harder to fund it as it sits there like a huge always hungry cuckoo
Yes, it’s a deliberate misunderstanding of what Thatcher said that keeps being trotted out, and completely undermines any force of argument the author might have. And the parasites at both ends of the social and financial scales are threatening the health, and survival, of the host.
“And the parasites at both ends of the social and financial scales are threatening the health, and survival, of the host.”
Your last sentence is more profound than anything expressed in the word salad of the original piece by Prof. Moyne.
“And the parasites at both ends of the social and financial scales are threatening the health, and survival, of the host.”
Your last sentence is more profound than anything expressed in the word salad of the original piece by Prof. Moyne.
Yes, it’s a deliberate misunderstanding of what Thatcher said that keeps being trotted out, and completely undermines any force of argument the author might have. And the parasites at both ends of the social and financial scales are threatening the health, and survival, of the host.
Public sector has been abandoned and cut brutally. Where have you been for the past 13 years?
Ethniciodo Rodenydo
8 months ago
“Margaret Thatcher’s insistence that “there is no such thing as society, only individual men and women, and families” has now led. The public sector was abandoned, as if individuals and families could make it on their own.”
What a dishonest load of BS. And the author masquerades as a university Chancellor and Professor of Law and History at Yale University, god help us
Thatcher’s point was that people have responsibilities and you cannot simply dump your responsibilities and expect the state to step in and pick up the tab.
As to the public sector being abandoned, it is the one thing that continues to grow an grow whatever the economic climate with those people in the real economy working harder and harder to fund it as it sits there like a huge always hungry cuckoo
Last edited 8 months ago by Ethniciodo Rodenydo
P N
8 months ago
Samuel Moyn’s assertion that the “wreckage”, “damage” and “decay” of our society is caused by the abandonment of the public sector rests on a number of false assumptions.
Firstly, that society is indeed wrecked or even warped. Is it? Compared to when and where? Compared to other times and other places, the UK is relatively prosperous, with relatively low crime rates, high employment, low poverty and not engaged in any wars. Sure, we could be doing better but when could we not be doing better? When is this Golden Period against which the author is comparing?
Secondly, that any wreckage or damage is caused by market failure and not policy failure. This is the classic false assumption made by many statists, whether it is the GFC of 2008 or the housing bubble of the last decade. Both of these are routinely touted by people who don’t understand economics as evidence of failures of market economies when at their heart lie policy not market failure. (The first being Clinton’s Community Reinvestment Act and the second being cheap money.)
Thirdly, that there has been any reduction in the state. We currently have the largest state in living memory with cradle to the grave welfare, government intervention in every aspect of our lives, including protecting us from high energy bills, and the largest tax burden since just after the War.
“An activist state, she insisted, “consigns” the poor “to a culture of dependency and degrades those it professes to help”.” Indeed Mr Moyn. I’m afraid your article has done nothing to disprove this.
If Mr Moyn is uncomfortable with Gertrude Himmelfarb’s Christian analysis of liberalism, perhaps he could study TS Eliot’s instead:
“By destroying traditional social habits of the people, by dissolving their natural collective consciousness into individual constituents, by licensing the opinions of the most foolish, by substituting instruction for education, by encouraging cleverness rather than wisdom, the upstart rather than the qualified, by fostering a notion of getting on, … Liberalism can prepare the way for that which is its own negation: the artificial, mechanized or brutalized control which is a desperate remedy for its chaos.”
Well said. This author is an excellent writer. He’s the sort of writer better understood not by what he said, but what was left unsaid. He conceals his particular position well, but in the end, he’s just another statist who believes in managing society through government action. To be fair, almost all politicians and most intellectuals show shades of this. They simply can’t accept the reality, that Himmelfarb, Acton, and countless others were correct. That the seeds of evil exist in all humanity. We cannot escape evil through any mechanism, device, or clever scheme because it is in us, as much a part of us as good and empathy. Whatever we call it, we cannot cast it aside any more than we can cast aside our stomachs or our minds. Without it, we would be something other than human. Given this assumption, progressivism is revealed for the lunacy that it is, an exercise in futility. It is not possible to perfect humanity. Attempting to do so leads to failure, which leads to angrier, more desperate attempts, which leads to greater failure, and before you know it, death and destruction on a scale that the worst villains can scarcely imagine. Attempts to perfect humanity have come from both right and left, but they always end in the same place. Extremes of the right like Hitlerite Germany and extremes of the left like Stalinist Russia use different language, methods, and motivations, but both are an attempt to perfect humanity, and both led to the same horrible cul-de-sac, the death of millions. Progressivism is a collection of blind fools following leaders just as blind as they to imagined paradises that they have no hope of reaching if they exist at all.
Well said. This author is an excellent writer. He’s the sort of writer better understood not by what he said, but what was left unsaid. He conceals his particular position well, but in the end, he’s just another statist who believes in managing society through government action. To be fair, almost all politicians and most intellectuals show shades of this. They simply can’t accept the reality, that Himmelfarb, Acton, and countless others were correct. That the seeds of evil exist in all humanity. We cannot escape evil through any mechanism, device, or clever scheme because it is in us, as much a part of us as good and empathy. Whatever we call it, we cannot cast it aside any more than we can cast aside our stomachs or our minds. Without it, we would be something other than human. Given this assumption, progressivism is revealed for the lunacy that it is, an exercise in futility. It is not possible to perfect humanity. Attempting to do so leads to failure, which leads to angrier, more desperate attempts, which leads to greater failure, and before you know it, death and destruction on a scale that the worst villains can scarcely imagine. Attempts to perfect humanity have come from both right and left, but they always end in the same place. Extremes of the right like Hitlerite Germany and extremes of the left like Stalinist Russia use different language, methods, and motivations, but both are an attempt to perfect humanity, and both led to the same horrible cul-de-sac, the death of millions. Progressivism is a collection of blind fools following leaders just as blind as they to imagined paradises that they have no hope of reaching if they exist at all.
Last edited 8 months ago by Steve Jolly
P N
8 months ago
Samuel Moyn’s assertion that the “wreckage”, “damage” and “decay” of our society is caused by the abandonment of the public sector rests on a number of false assumptions.
Firstly, that society is indeed wrecked or even warped. Is it? Compared to when and where? Compared to other times and other places, the UK is relatively prosperous, with relatively low crime rates, high employment, low poverty and not engaged in any wars. Sure, we could be doing better but when could we not be doing better? When is this Golden Period against which the author is comparing?
Secondly, that any wreckage or damage is caused by market failure and not policy failure. This is the classic false assumption made by many statists, whether it is the GFC of 2008 or the housing bubble of the last decade. Both of these are routinely touted by people who don’t understand economics as evidence of failures of market economies when at their heart lie policy not market failure. (The first being Clinton’s Community Reinvestment Act and the second being cheap money.)
Thirdly, that there has been any reduction in the state. We currently have the largest state in living memory with cradle to the grave welfare, government intervention in every aspect of our lives, including protecting us from high energy bills, and the largest tax burden since just after the War.
“An activist state, she insisted, “consigns” the poor “to a culture of dependency and degrades those it professes to help”.” Indeed Mr Moyn. I’m afraid your article has done nothing to disprove this.
If Mr Moyn is uncomfortable with Gertrude Himmelfarb’s Christian analysis of liberalism, perhaps he could study TS Eliot’s instead:
“By destroying traditional social habits of the people, by dissolving their natural collective consciousness into individual constituents, by licensing the opinions of the most foolish, by substituting instruction for education, by encouraging cleverness rather than wisdom, the upstart rather than the qualified, by fostering a notion of getting on, … Liberalism can prepare the way for that which is its own negation: the artificial, mechanized or brutalized control which is a desperate remedy for its chaos.”
Last edited 8 months ago by P N
Susan Grabston
8 months ago
Having “won” the cold war, the hubristic West seeing the end of history, forgot to mount the gates, externally and internally. From a culture of preparedness and vigilance we threw ourselves into a bonfire of vanity and hyper-liberalism leaving darker forces to penetrste our shield. The world has a difficult 8 years ahead, which should reset the current culture as reality deals a series of harsh blows. Which system emerges thereafter is the key.
Susan Grabston
8 months ago
Having “won” the cold war, the hubristic West seeing the end of history, forgot to mount the gates, externally and internally. From a culture of preparedness and vigilance we threw ourselves into a bonfire of vanity and hyper-liberalism leaving darker forces to penetrste our shield. The world has a difficult 8 years ahead, which should reset the current culture as reality deals a series of harsh blows. Which system emerges thereafter is the key.
JR Stoker
8 months ago
It summons up our times that Yale would allow such a partial and misleading person to occupy a professorial seat
That’s the most pertinent point of all, and brings the title of “Professor” into disrepute for the rather obvious reasons spelled out in other comments.
That’s the most pertinent point of all, and brings the title of “Professor” into disrepute for the rather obvious reasons spelled out in other comments.
JR Stoker
8 months ago
It summons up our times that Yale would allow such a partial and misleading person to occupy a professorial seat
Christopher Chantrill
8 months ago
First, I have seven books by Gertrude Himmelfarb on my shelf. I don’t recognize that Himmelfarb in this piece.
Second, anyone with half a brain should know by now that “neoconservatism” and “neoliberalism” are pejoratives used by our educated class to discredit… whatever they don’t like.
Third, I notice from my ukpublicspending dot co dot uk site that UK public spending was just under 40 percent of GDP from the late 1940s to 1980. Then Thatcher took it down to 30 percent GDP in 1988. Since then it has crawled back up to 40 percent GDP and peaking at 53 percent GDP in 2021 (yay big government!).
So the author’s point is what, exactly?
Ian Cooper
8 months ago
Neo-liberalism has a great deal to answer for, it’s as much behind foolish mass immigration, for cheap labour, as the left is with its juvenile ideas of the rainbow society. It also extolled the idea of personal enrichment as opposed to wealth creation for the common good. But where it criticised welfare dependency, poor education, trade union corruption and at least for while argued for the family – the poor’s most important resource – it did good.
Ian Cooper
8 months ago
Neo-liberalism has a great deal to answer for, it’s as much behind foolish mass immigration, for cheap labour, as the left is with its juvenile ideas of the rainbow society. It also extolled the idea of personal enrichment as opposed to wealth creation for the common good. But where it criticised welfare dependency, poor education, trade union corruption and at least for while argued for the family – the poor’s most important resource – it did good.
SIMON WOLF
8 months ago
Strong societies are based on having working class areas rooted in family values and the rule of law with the belief that with hard work they can move into the affluent suburbs.Many of todays problems have arisen because increasing amounts of people do not belief in family values or the rule of law or that they can be upwardly mobile.
Strong societies are based on having working class areas rooted in family values and the rule of law with the belief that with hard work they can move into the affluent suburbs.Many of todays problems have arisen because increasing amounts of people do not belief in family values or the rule of law or that they can be upwardly mobile.
Charlie Two
8 months ago
Another Educated Idiot that would be better suited to the Guardian or NYT.
Tyler Durden
8 months ago
It would appear that the Bush clan used Christianity – and Jnr becoming a ‘born again’ conservative after wasting his life as a problem drinker – to justify their neoconservative project of a New American Century.
Rumsfeld always told Cheney that the divine vision of the United States was to wage and win the ultimate war with Russia and China. Saps like James Baker tried to build a consensus around ‘no further NATO expansion’ in the 90s, but that collapsed entirely upon Bush Jnr’s election with Rummi, Cheney, Condi and Wolfie (neocon intellectual Wolfowitz) pushing for new US manipulation of the Middle East and Eurasia beyond.
Tyler Durden
8 months ago
It would appear that the Bush clan used Christianity – and Jnr becoming a ‘born again’ conservative after wasting his life as a problem drinker – to justify their neoconservative project of a New American Century.
Rumsfeld always told Cheney that the divine vision of the United States was to wage and win the ultimate war with Russia and China. Saps like James Baker tried to build a consensus around ‘no further NATO expansion’ in the 90s, but that collapsed entirely upon Bush Jnr’s election with Rummi, Cheney, Condi and Wolfie (neocon intellectual Wolfowitz) pushing for new US manipulation of the Middle East and Eurasia beyond.
Well researched article but I don’t buy the source of blame. The West is not collapsing because of past actions by Reagan and Thatcher to favor family values and the free market while eschewing large government redistribution programs. No, the West is collapsing because of disintegrated culture caused by lax immigration policies that don’t promote integration and infiltrative postcolonial social engineering campaigns
that use unaccountable bureacracies like Universities to push Anti-Western propaganda. Leaders are now Activists demanding the State redistribute “cultural and social capital” by creating an illiberal, intolerant Identity Hierarchy as a form of reparatory justice. Universities now reject the idea of merit and competition as a force of progress and instead promote doublethink like Identity as a site of both oppression and strength. What’s the end goal? Certainly not social cohesion.
It’s an environment designed to encourage reckless spending in the form Public-Private wealth transfers to what the State determines are “worthy causes” leading to excess money printing creating inflation. In this form of Corporate Cronyism the “State Partners” are Lobbyists favored by virtue of their promotion of “State interests.” And by State Interests, I mean the interests of the people running the State. Add in decades of excess government spending on counterproductive nation building and you’ve got yourself a dysfunctional spoils system that reproduces failure and continually justifies more transfer payments as a remedy for that same failure.
Well said. His notion that “the public sector was abandoned” is sheer junk. With tax at a seventy year high and the NHS more bloated than ever, the public sector has been indulged, embraced, canonised and corrupted. As you say, the real damage has been inflicted not by neo-Cons, although they have much to answer for, nor by neo-liberals, who actually did much good, but by neo-Marxists, who opened the borders of countries whose culture they proceeded to denigrate and dismantle, making assimilation impossible and guaranteeing tension. There lies the seed of our destruction, there we find the origin of our decline. That the learned professor can ignore all this testifies only to the sturdiness of his “bien pensant” blinkers.
Spot on.
The most pernicious piece of legislation ever fostered on this country (UK) is the wretched ‘Commission for Racial Equality’ now renamed the ‘Equality and Human Rights Commission’!
Established by a Labour Government in 1976 its first chairman just had to be a ‘bien pensant’Tory, the late Sir David Lane.
At the time the late Lord Denning described its powers as being like those of the “days of the Inquisition “.
With an annual budget of close to £20 million it continuously stokes the fires of racial discord and should have been disbanded years ago! But sadly even the late late Lady Thatcher felt unable to act.
We are now living with the consequences.
After reading the first paragraph, I made a bet with myself that the content of the most upvoted would be thus reply. You have to give it to the big government totalitarian types. They will throw any sort of argument at the wall just to see the splatter. My guess is they actually believe this stuff.
Well said, Sir!
Well said. His notion that “the public sector was abandoned” is sheer junk. With tax at a seventy year high and the NHS more bloated than ever, the public sector has been indulged, embraced, canonised and corrupted. As you say, the real damage has been inflicted not by neo-Cons, although they have much to answer for, nor by neo-liberals, who actually did much good, but by neo-Marxists, who opened the borders of countries whose culture they proceeded to denigrate and dismantle, making assimilation impossible and guaranteeing tension. There lies the seed of our destruction, there we find the origin of our decline. That the learned professor can ignore all this testifies only to the sturdiness of his “bien pensant” blinkers.
Spot on.
The most pernicious piece of legislation ever fostered on this country (UK) is the wretched ‘Commission for Racial Equality’ now renamed the ‘Equality and Human Rights Commission’!
Established by a Labour Government in 1976 its first chairman just had to be a ‘bien pensant’Tory, the late Sir David Lane.
At the time the late Lord Denning described its powers as being like those of the “days of the Inquisition “.
With an annual budget of close to £20 million it continuously stokes the fires of racial discord and should have been disbanded years ago! But sadly even the late late Lady Thatcher felt unable to act.
We are now living with the consequences.
After reading the first paragraph, I made a bet with myself that the content of the most upvoted would be thus reply. You have to give it to the big government totalitarian types. They will throw any sort of argument at the wall just to see the splatter. My guess is they actually believe this stuff.
Well said, Sir!
Well researched article but I don’t buy the source of blame. The West is not collapsing because of past actions by Reagan and Thatcher to favor family values and the free market while eschewing large government redistribution programs. No, the West is collapsing because of disintegrated culture caused by lax immigration policies that don’t promote integration and infiltrative postcolonial social engineering campaigns
that use unaccountable bureacracies like Universities to push Anti-Western propaganda. Leaders are now Activists demanding the State redistribute “cultural and social capital” by creating an illiberal, intolerant Identity Hierarchy as a form of reparatory justice. Universities now reject the idea of merit and competition as a force of progress and instead promote doublethink like Identity as a site of both oppression and strength. What’s the end goal? Certainly not social cohesion.
It’s an environment designed to encourage reckless spending in the form Public-Private wealth transfers to what the State determines are “worthy causes” leading to excess money printing creating inflation. In this form of Corporate Cronyism the “State Partners” are Lobbyists favored by virtue of their promotion of “State interests.” And by State Interests, I mean the interests of the people running the State. Add in decades of excess government spending on counterproductive nation building and you’ve got yourself a dysfunctional spoils system that reproduces failure and continually justifies more transfer payments as a remedy for that same failure.
It’s very odd that such a thoughtful article by an eminent academic should begin with a comment on Margaret Thatcher that would sound banal if coming from a teenage activist.
Surely Professor Moyn has read the whole interview (for a women’s weekly magazine published in 1987) … https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/106689
Thatcher was stating the obvious link between entitlements and obligations – how such straightforward logic leads to a ‘sense of decay’ rather escapes me.
Thank you for posting that link. “No such thing as society” is so often misunderstood that you wonder if it isn’t actually being deliberately misrepresented.
Agreed. For those who will not follow your link to the entire article (recommend it!) here is the relevant excerpt:
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 …
Again, the full interview is here:
https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/106689
Thank you for pointing this out so clearly and referencing it. One of the most misused partial filletings of what the lady said
Thank you for posting that link. “No such thing as society” is so often misunderstood that you wonder if it isn’t actually being deliberately misrepresented.
Agreed. For those who will not follow your link to the entire article (recommend it!) here is the relevant excerpt:
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 …
Again, the full interview is here:
https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/106689
Thank you for pointing this out so clearly and referencing it. One of the most misused partial filletings of what the lady said
It’s very odd that such a thoughtful article by an eminent academic should begin with a comment on Margaret Thatcher that would sound banal if coming from a teenage activist.
Surely Professor Moyn has read the whole interview (for a women’s weekly magazine published in 1987) … https://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/106689
Thatcher was stating the obvious link between entitlements and obligations – how such straightforward logic leads to a ‘sense of decay’ rather escapes me.
Yet *another* UnHerd article that misquotes Mrs Thatcher’s statement. At least this one includes the second part of the sentence, typically omitted. Did the writer live through the 1980s? Was it perfect? No. But is that era the source of the degenerate corruption that is destroying every civilised value in front of our eyes, today? Don’t be ridiculous. We were a robust, open-minded and outgoing country, until Blair decided to rub our noses in what has become our future.
Yet *another* UnHerd article that misquotes Mrs Thatcher’s statement. At least this one includes the second part of the sentence, typically omitted. Did the writer live through the 1980s? Was it perfect? No. But is that era the source of the degenerate corruption that is destroying every civilised value in front of our eyes, today? Don’t be ridiculous. We were a robust, open-minded and outgoing country, until Blair decided to rub our noses in what has become our future.
“Margaret Thatcher’s insistence that “there is no such thing as society, only individual men and women, and families” has now led. The public sector was abandoned, as if individuals and families could make it on their own.”
What a dishonest load of BS. And the author masquerades as a university Chancellor and Professor of Law and History at Yale University, god help us
Thatcher’s point was that people have responsibilities and you cannot simply dump your responsibilities and expect the state to step in and pick up the tab.
As to the public sector being abandoned, it is the one thing that continues to grow an grow whatever the economic climate with those people in the real economy working harder and harder to fund it as it sits there like a huge always hungry cuckoo
Yes, it’s a deliberate misunderstanding of what Thatcher said that keeps being trotted out, and completely undermines any force of argument the author might have. And the parasites at both ends of the social and financial scales are threatening the health, and survival, of the host.
“And the parasites at both ends of the social and financial scales are threatening the health, and survival, of the host.”
Your last sentence is more profound than anything expressed in the word salad of the original piece by Prof. Moyne.
“And the parasites at both ends of the social and financial scales are threatening the health, and survival, of the host.”
Your last sentence is more profound than anything expressed in the word salad of the original piece by Prof. Moyne.
Public sector has been abandoned and cut brutally. Where have you been for the past 13 years?
https://www.statista.com/statistics/298478/public-sector-expenditure-as-share-of-gdp-united-kingdom-uk/ I’ve been studying statistics. Where have you been?
https://www.statista.com/statistics/298478/public-sector-expenditure-as-share-of-gdp-united-kingdom-uk/ I’ve been studying statistics. Where have you been?
Yes, it’s a deliberate misunderstanding of what Thatcher said that keeps being trotted out, and completely undermines any force of argument the author might have. And the parasites at both ends of the social and financial scales are threatening the health, and survival, of the host.
Public sector has been abandoned and cut brutally. Where have you been for the past 13 years?
“Margaret Thatcher’s insistence that “there is no such thing as society, only individual men and women, and families” has now led. The public sector was abandoned, as if individuals and families could make it on their own.”
What a dishonest load of BS. And the author masquerades as a university Chancellor and Professor of Law and History at Yale University, god help us
Thatcher’s point was that people have responsibilities and you cannot simply dump your responsibilities and expect the state to step in and pick up the tab.
As to the public sector being abandoned, it is the one thing that continues to grow an grow whatever the economic climate with those people in the real economy working harder and harder to fund it as it sits there like a huge always hungry cuckoo
Samuel Moyn’s assertion that the “wreckage”, “damage” and “decay” of our society is caused by the abandonment of the public sector rests on a number of false assumptions.
Firstly, that society is indeed wrecked or even warped. Is it? Compared to when and where? Compared to other times and other places, the UK is relatively prosperous, with relatively low crime rates, high employment, low poverty and not engaged in any wars. Sure, we could be doing better but when could we not be doing better? When is this Golden Period against which the author is comparing?
Secondly, that any wreckage or damage is caused by market failure and not policy failure. This is the classic false assumption made by many statists, whether it is the GFC of 2008 or the housing bubble of the last decade. Both of these are routinely touted by people who don’t understand economics as evidence of failures of market economies when at their heart lie policy not market failure. (The first being Clinton’s Community Reinvestment Act and the second being cheap money.)
Thirdly, that there has been any reduction in the state. We currently have the largest state in living memory with cradle to the grave welfare, government intervention in every aspect of our lives, including protecting us from high energy bills, and the largest tax burden since just after the War.
“An activist state, she insisted, “consigns” the poor “to a culture of dependency and degrades those it professes to help”.” Indeed Mr Moyn. I’m afraid your article has done nothing to disprove this.
If Mr Moyn is uncomfortable with Gertrude Himmelfarb’s Christian analysis of liberalism, perhaps he could study TS Eliot’s instead:
“By destroying traditional social habits of the people, by dissolving their natural collective consciousness into individual constituents, by licensing the opinions of the most foolish, by substituting instruction for education, by encouraging cleverness rather than wisdom, the upstart rather than the qualified, by fostering a notion of getting on, … Liberalism can prepare the way for that which is its own negation: the artificial, mechanized or brutalized control which is a desperate remedy for its chaos.”
Well said. This author is an excellent writer. He’s the sort of writer better understood not by what he said, but what was left unsaid. He conceals his particular position well, but in the end, he’s just another statist who believes in managing society through government action. To be fair, almost all politicians and most intellectuals show shades of this. They simply can’t accept the reality, that Himmelfarb, Acton, and countless others were correct. That the seeds of evil exist in all humanity. We cannot escape evil through any mechanism, device, or clever scheme because it is in us, as much a part of us as good and empathy. Whatever we call it, we cannot cast it aside any more than we can cast aside our stomachs or our minds. Without it, we would be something other than human. Given this assumption, progressivism is revealed for the lunacy that it is, an exercise in futility. It is not possible to perfect humanity. Attempting to do so leads to failure, which leads to angrier, more desperate attempts, which leads to greater failure, and before you know it, death and destruction on a scale that the worst villains can scarcely imagine. Attempts to perfect humanity have come from both right and left, but they always end in the same place. Extremes of the right like Hitlerite Germany and extremes of the left like Stalinist Russia use different language, methods, and motivations, but both are an attempt to perfect humanity, and both led to the same horrible cul-de-sac, the death of millions. Progressivism is a collection of blind fools following leaders just as blind as they to imagined paradises that they have no hope of reaching if they exist at all.
Well said. This author is an excellent writer. He’s the sort of writer better understood not by what he said, but what was left unsaid. He conceals his particular position well, but in the end, he’s just another statist who believes in managing society through government action. To be fair, almost all politicians and most intellectuals show shades of this. They simply can’t accept the reality, that Himmelfarb, Acton, and countless others were correct. That the seeds of evil exist in all humanity. We cannot escape evil through any mechanism, device, or clever scheme because it is in us, as much a part of us as good and empathy. Whatever we call it, we cannot cast it aside any more than we can cast aside our stomachs or our minds. Without it, we would be something other than human. Given this assumption, progressivism is revealed for the lunacy that it is, an exercise in futility. It is not possible to perfect humanity. Attempting to do so leads to failure, which leads to angrier, more desperate attempts, which leads to greater failure, and before you know it, death and destruction on a scale that the worst villains can scarcely imagine. Attempts to perfect humanity have come from both right and left, but they always end in the same place. Extremes of the right like Hitlerite Germany and extremes of the left like Stalinist Russia use different language, methods, and motivations, but both are an attempt to perfect humanity, and both led to the same horrible cul-de-sac, the death of millions. Progressivism is a collection of blind fools following leaders just as blind as they to imagined paradises that they have no hope of reaching if they exist at all.
Samuel Moyn’s assertion that the “wreckage”, “damage” and “decay” of our society is caused by the abandonment of the public sector rests on a number of false assumptions.
Firstly, that society is indeed wrecked or even warped. Is it? Compared to when and where? Compared to other times and other places, the UK is relatively prosperous, with relatively low crime rates, high employment, low poverty and not engaged in any wars. Sure, we could be doing better but when could we not be doing better? When is this Golden Period against which the author is comparing?
Secondly, that any wreckage or damage is caused by market failure and not policy failure. This is the classic false assumption made by many statists, whether it is the GFC of 2008 or the housing bubble of the last decade. Both of these are routinely touted by people who don’t understand economics as evidence of failures of market economies when at their heart lie policy not market failure. (The first being Clinton’s Community Reinvestment Act and the second being cheap money.)
Thirdly, that there has been any reduction in the state. We currently have the largest state in living memory with cradle to the grave welfare, government intervention in every aspect of our lives, including protecting us from high energy bills, and the largest tax burden since just after the War.
“An activist state, she insisted, “consigns” the poor “to a culture of dependency and degrades those it professes to help”.” Indeed Mr Moyn. I’m afraid your article has done nothing to disprove this.
If Mr Moyn is uncomfortable with Gertrude Himmelfarb’s Christian analysis of liberalism, perhaps he could study TS Eliot’s instead:
“By destroying traditional social habits of the people, by dissolving their natural collective consciousness into individual constituents, by licensing the opinions of the most foolish, by substituting instruction for education, by encouraging cleverness rather than wisdom, the upstart rather than the qualified, by fostering a notion of getting on, … Liberalism can prepare the way for that which is its own negation: the artificial, mechanized or brutalized control which is a desperate remedy for its chaos.”
Having “won” the cold war, the hubristic West seeing the end of history, forgot to mount the gates, externally and internally. From a culture of preparedness and vigilance we threw ourselves into a bonfire of vanity and hyper-liberalism leaving darker forces to penetrste our shield. The world has a difficult 8 years ahead, which should reset the current culture as reality deals a series of harsh blows. Which system emerges thereafter is the key.
Having “won” the cold war, the hubristic West seeing the end of history, forgot to mount the gates, externally and internally. From a culture of preparedness and vigilance we threw ourselves into a bonfire of vanity and hyper-liberalism leaving darker forces to penetrste our shield. The world has a difficult 8 years ahead, which should reset the current culture as reality deals a series of harsh blows. Which system emerges thereafter is the key.
It summons up our times that Yale would allow such a partial and misleading person to occupy a professorial seat
That’s the most pertinent point of all, and brings the title of “Professor” into disrepute for the rather obvious reasons spelled out in other comments.
That’s the most pertinent point of all, and brings the title of “Professor” into disrepute for the rather obvious reasons spelled out in other comments.
It summons up our times that Yale would allow such a partial and misleading person to occupy a professorial seat
First, I have seven books by Gertrude Himmelfarb on my shelf. I don’t recognize that Himmelfarb in this piece.
Second, anyone with half a brain should know by now that “neoconservatism” and “neoliberalism” are pejoratives used by our educated class to discredit… whatever they don’t like.
Third, I notice from my ukpublicspending dot co dot uk site that UK public spending was just under 40 percent of GDP from the late 1940s to 1980. Then Thatcher took it down to 30 percent GDP in 1988. Since then it has crawled back up to 40 percent GDP and peaking at 53 percent GDP in 2021 (yay big government!).
So the author’s point is what, exactly?
Neo-liberalism has a great deal to answer for, it’s as much behind foolish mass immigration, for cheap labour, as the left is with its juvenile ideas of the rainbow society. It also extolled the idea of personal enrichment as opposed to wealth creation for the common good. But where it criticised welfare dependency, poor education, trade union corruption and at least for while argued for the family – the poor’s most important resource – it did good.
Neo-liberalism has a great deal to answer for, it’s as much behind foolish mass immigration, for cheap labour, as the left is with its juvenile ideas of the rainbow society. It also extolled the idea of personal enrichment as opposed to wealth creation for the common good. But where it criticised welfare dependency, poor education, trade union corruption and at least for while argued for the family – the poor’s most important resource – it did good.
Strong societies are based on having working class areas rooted in family values and the rule of law with the belief that with hard work they can move into the affluent suburbs.Many of todays problems have arisen because increasing amounts of people do not belief in family values or the rule of law or that they can be upwardly mobile.
Yes, and I’ll add, everyone is working class.
Yes, and I’ll add, everyone is working class.
Strong societies are based on having working class areas rooted in family values and the rule of law with the belief that with hard work they can move into the affluent suburbs.Many of todays problems have arisen because increasing amounts of people do not belief in family values or the rule of law or that they can be upwardly mobile.
Another Educated Idiot that would be better suited to the Guardian or NYT.
It would appear that the Bush clan used Christianity – and Jnr becoming a ‘born again’ conservative after wasting his life as a problem drinker – to justify their neoconservative project of a New American Century.
Rumsfeld always told Cheney that the divine vision of the United States was to wage and win the ultimate war with Russia and China. Saps like James Baker tried to build a consensus around ‘no further NATO expansion’ in the 90s, but that collapsed entirely upon Bush Jnr’s election with Rummi, Cheney, Condi and Wolfie (neocon intellectual Wolfowitz) pushing for new US manipulation of the Middle East and Eurasia beyond.
It would appear that the Bush clan used Christianity – and Jnr becoming a ‘born again’ conservative after wasting his life as a problem drinker – to justify their neoconservative project of a New American Century.
Rumsfeld always told Cheney that the divine vision of the United States was to wage and win the ultimate war with Russia and China. Saps like James Baker tried to build a consensus around ‘no further NATO expansion’ in the 90s, but that collapsed entirely upon Bush Jnr’s election with Rummi, Cheney, Condi and Wolfie (neocon intellectual Wolfowitz) pushing for new US manipulation of the Middle East and Eurasia beyond.