Essay on Stuart Hall Part 2: More criticism of Thatcher

Today's post will cover the problems Stuart Hall saw with Thatcherism and the responses he proposed to defeat the monstrous beast.

III: From Problems to Responses

            After witnessing the devastating effects of Thatcherism in the country he had emigrated to, Stuart Hall did what any level headed intellectual would do about a perceived crisis.  He wrote numerous essays on how to stop the runaway freight train of new conservative policies that Margaret Thatcher and her administration had unleashed to the great land of Britain.  He also discussed how the left should attack and beat Thatcher.  Hall starts out by writing in his essay “The Battle for Socialist Ideas in the 1980’s”, that the problem with the left and more specifically with the socialists, was the belief that socialism was inevitable and they just had to wait for it to take hold (Hall p. 177-8).  He writes that even though the conditions had been ideal for a socialist takeover in Britain, it had never gotten off the ground due to the populous routinely voting for the opposite ideas (like voting for Thatcher in three consecutive elections) (Hall p. 179).   The only way socialism can take hold is if the working class becomes educated in the ways of the socialist.  The socialists themselves must abandon the notion that the working class will inevitably dissolve into socialist ideas.  Instead, the socialists must undertake a campaign to destroy the very deeply rooted prejudices of racism, jingoism, and sexism that have clouded the prism of the working class mind (Hall p. 180).  The very division that Thatcherism has reinforced must be destroyed in order for the flowers of socialist thought to grow in the minds of the working class Briton. 

For socialism to become a successful force in the 1980’s, Hall argues that it must be freed from three prisms of thought.  It must first disassociate itself from the grim legacy of the communism commonly known as Stalinism.  The failures and abuses of the Stalin regime have tainted communism and has been unfairly grouped socialism with it.  The failures of a communist regime are no more vivid and apparent than what happened under the Stalin regime.  Socialists would be wise to discuss what the failures of a socialist state could be (Hall p. 185).   A second barrier to socialism in the United Kingdom is that the Labour government chose to reform the social-democratic system rather than completely transform it.  They worked within the capitalist framework to advance reform and failed.  Labour’s ideas did not help fix the economic problems and thus the people became fed up and exhausted with the latest crop of ineffectual leaders at the helm.  The people decided to take a walk on the wild side and they didn’t want to take it with Lou Reed.  They decided to take it with the conservatives and their front woman, Margaret Thatcher.  Thatcher and the resurgence of the right is the last major barrier for the socialist takeover of Britain.  The right seized upon an “authoritarian populism: and precipitated a swing to the right that was different than other conservative governments before it (Hall p. 188).  Its ideological prevalence and penetration cut deeply into the British consciousness and due to the focus on “traditionalist ideas” and the “ideas of social and moral responsibility” (Hall p. 194).  The radical right had morality and tradition on its side.  It is up to the socialist to undermine these strong feelings that have become aroused by swelling movement of Thatcherism.

Those are the prisms of thought that socialism must defeat.  To the untrained eye these challenges look like the 1972-73 Celtics.  But like those Celtics, Thatcher could be defeated and it would not take the mesmerizing backcourt of Walt Frazier and Earl the Pearl to defeat it, nor a timely injury to John Havlicek to seal the deal.  Stuart Hall has a different answer.  The Labour party must update their rhetoric and learn how to win an election.  They need to modernize their message and stop relying on the post war spirit of 1945 (Hall p.267).  In 1984, Hall wrote his essay “The Crisis of Labourism” which detailed how Labour and left could defeat the Thatcher in the next election.   Labour can start by becoming the party of the disenfranchised and unite women, blacks, and the poor together against the policies causing them grievous harm.  They need to each out to these parties and create a coalition of the disenfranchised and the underrepresented in the Thatcher regime.  The failure of the Labour party to modernize has prevented them from reaching out to feminists and gay and lesbian causes, while sticking to a working class mentality that has been proved unsuccessful.  Working class voters have been blinded by themes of moral responsibility and traditionalism and have repeatedly voted against their economic interests.  It is the English version of what’s the matter with Kansas.  Hall notes that creating a coalition of those who Thatcher has neglected would serve Labour well in defeating her regime. 

This is not the only way to defeat the problem that is Thatcherism.  Gathering up minorities into a tent-like party will not solely suffice.  The article also supposes that the Labour party needs to provide an alternative vision of  a socialist society.  Instead of trying to wage a battle based on mass political ideology, Labour is content with having an economic outlook and ideology (Hall p.208).  Labour believes it can survive with the old adage of “once Labour, always Labour”, but this political automatism does not exist anymore.  Working class culture has been fragmented and working class voters cannot be expected to always support Labour.  The support for the Labour party has shifted and Labour has not capitalized on it.  They lack a clear ideological message and their party relies the idea on inevitability.  Thatcherism has a clear meaning.  The average Briton could give an apt description of the future under Thatcher because she has given a Britain clear view of it.  Her policies are her religion, her sin is her heartlessness.  The problem with Labour is that they are always looking out to Noah’s great rainbow; they have no alternative lifestyle to Thatcherism stated.  There is no message as to what modern socialism would look like under Labour, or simply what modernity would look like (Hall p.209).  They have no clear cut vision, just a whole lot of mixed-up confusion.  And to Stuart Hall it is a-killing him.  

Another way to combat Thatcherism is for the socialists and Labour to redefine their terms.  For far too long they have been playing on the home field of Thatcherism and they keep letting the fans of team Thatcher get to them.  Labour has been fighting an uphill battle and losing due to outdated ideological terms.  In his 1984 article, “The State-Socialism’s Old Caretaker”, Stuart Hall argues that socialism does not have to be equated with statist thinking.  Socialism should come from a transfer of the state to the society (Hall p. 231).  The increased diversity of the younger generation will allow these changes to occur.  Democratizing civil society is as important as dismantling the bureaucracies of the state (Hall p. 231).  Changing what socialism means and taking it away from a historical perspective of a statist viewpoint is very important.  Statist thought has a bad rap in Britain but it is the duty of the socialist to convey that it is not the end all in socialist thought.  Bringing socialism down to a local level and infusing it with the democratization of civil society would bring about the ideal situation for Hall.  That is the way socialism can win the battle for Britain against the forces of Thatcherism.