Thatcherism conquered the abstract neutral state by recasting it as the enemy

Evidence

Instead of confronting this contradiction at the heart of its strategy, Labourism has typically fallen back on reaffirming the neutral-benevolent definition of the state, as incarnator of the National Interest and above the struggle between the contending classes. It is precisely this abstract state which now appears transformed in the discourses of Thatcherism as the enemy. It is “the state” which has over-borrowed and overspent; fueled inflation; fooled the people into thinking that there would always be more where the last handout came from; tried to assume the regulation of things like wages and prices which are best left to the hidden hand of market forces; above all, interfered, meddled, intervened, instructed, directed—against the essence, the Genius, of the British People. It is time, as she says, with conviction, “to put people’s destinies again in their own hands.” — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 1120

Categorization

• XREF: Directly echoes the Frankfurt School analyses of how fascism/adversarial politics appropriate the neutral-rationalist state concept for their own ends.