Capitalism’s Champion
14th April 2013
John Derbyshire remembers Margaret Thatcher.
One of the first things Margaret Thatcher’s government did was to remove exchange controls. It was a small thing but a blessing for ordinary people like me. (For the rich there had always been ways to move money across borders. Governments of any party rarely inconvenience the rich.)
John describes this as ‘semi-Sovietized’, and that’s pretty accurate. These policies were what made the Rolling Stones tax exiles and move George Harrison to write ‘The Taxman’ — not that it prevented either from voting for the same twits who originated that legislation in the first place; creative people seem to have a problem connecting those particular dots.
Capitalism, like dentistry, is a matter of creative destruction. There is nothing creative in the Thatcher-haters’ cruelty. It’s just purposeless malice.
Yup.