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<oembed><version>1.0</version><provider_name>naked capitalism</provider_name><provider_url>https://www.nakedcapitalism.com</provider_url><author_name>Yves Smith</author_name><author_url>https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/author/yves-smith</author_url><title>Michael Hudson: Thatcher's Legacy of Failed Privatizations | naked capitalism</title><type>rich</type><width>600</width><height>338</height><html>&lt;blockquote class="wp-embedded-content" data-secret="YBGPqJSWTV"&gt;&lt;a href="https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/04/michael-hudson-thatchers-legacy-of-failed-privatizations.html"&gt;Michael Hudson: Thatcher&#x2019;s Legacy of Failed Privatizations&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;iframe sandbox="allow-scripts" security="restricted" src="https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/04/michael-hudson-thatchers-legacy-of-failed-privatizations.html/embed#?secret=YBGPqJSWTV" width="600" height="338" title="&#x201C;Michael Hudson: Thatcher&#x2019;s Legacy of Failed Privatizations&#x201D; &#x2014; naked capitalism" data-secret="YBGPqJSWTV" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" class="wp-embedded-content"&gt;&lt;/iframe&gt;&lt;script type="text/javascript"&gt;
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</html><description>Yves here. Be warned this piece is long but very much worth your time, since it demolishes the myth of the attractiveness of privatizations by looking at its record in England, where it was first undertaken on a widespread basis.   By Michael Hudson, a research professor of Economics at University of Missouri, Kansas City, and a research associate at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College. His latest book is &#x201C;The Bubble and Beyond.&#x201D;    As in Chile, privatization in Britain was a victory for Chicago monetarism. This time it was implemented democratically. In fact, voters endorsed Margaret Thatcher&#x2019;s selloff of public industries so strongly that by 1991, when she was replaced as prime minister by her own party&#x2019;s John Major, only 35 percent of Britain&#x2019;s voters supported the Labour Party &#x2013; half the proportion registered in 1945. The Conservatives sold off public monopolies, used the proceeds to cut taxes, and put the privatized firms on a profit-making basis. Their stock prices rose sharply, making capital gains for investors whose ranks included millions of Britons who had been employees and/or customers of these enterprises.        Yet by 1997 the Conservatives were voted out of office by one of the largest margins in their history. What concerned voters were the results of privatization that Mrs. Thatcher had not warned them about</description></oembed>

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