Thatcherism translated economic doctrine into populist moral common sense

Evidence

Neither Keynesianism nor monetarism, however, wins votes as such in the electoral marketplace. But, in the discourse of “social market values,” Thatcherism discovered a powerful means of translating economic doctrine into the language of experience, moral imperative, and common sense, thus providing a “philosophy” in the broader sense—an alternative ethic to that of the “caring society.” This translation of a theoretical ideology into a populist idiom was a major political achievement: and the conversion of hard-faced economics into the language of compulsive moralism was, in many ways, the centerpiece of this transformation. “Being British” became once again identified with the restoration of competition and profitability; with tight money and sound finance (“You can’t pay yourself more than you earn!!”)—the national economy projected on the model of the household budget. The essence of the British people was identified with self-reliance and personal responsibility, as against the image of the overtaxed individual, enervated by welfare-state “coddling,” his or her moral fiber irrevocably sapped by “state handouts.” This assault, not just on welfare over-spending, but on the very principle and essence of collective social welfare—the centerpiece of consensus politics from the Butskell period onward—was mounted, not through an analysis of which class of the deserving made most out of the welfare state, but through the emotive image of the “scrounger”: the new folk-devil. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 1110

Categorization

• DEFINE: Illustrates the mechanism of translating a theoretical ideology into a populist idiom — a core Hall concept deployed concretely.
• XREF: The ‘scrounger as folk-devil’ motif resonates with Hall’s own Policing the Crisis and with moral-panic scholarship (Cohen), which the reader tracks. — connects to: Common sense is a historical construct with changing ideological contents.; Thatcherism is authoritarian populism, not fascism, retaining popular consent; Economic doctrine wins power only when translated into moral common sense (+7 more)
• SEED: Essay angle: the household-budget metaphor for national economics as a recurring populist frame — from Thatcher’s ‘You can’t pay yourself more than you earn’ to modern deficit discourse.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 1110

Broader Connections

• Becoming common sense is a key route to hegemonic power #corroborates (0.70)
• Thatcherism was Britain’s local response to globalization’s challenges. #expands (0.50)