I keep hearing that Reagan and Thatcher were the last major nation-state leaders. That’s not true, though. The Thatcher / Reagan era was precisely the one when the first cracks appeared on the facade of the nation-state, and neither Reagan nor Thatcher could adapt. They were both trying to escape from the nation-state model but didn’t manage to do so fully.
Both Thatcher and Reagan relied on the idea that the state was no longer responsible for the welfare of the people. However, they still wanted to control morality through the legislative means of the state apparatus. And that’s just not going to work.
There are only two options that can possibly exist: 1. Citizens make their own choices and bear full responsibility for those choices, or 2. The state makes some of the choices for individuals (whom to marry, when and how to reproduce, etc) but then helps them deal with their misfortunes when such misfortunes arise.
The Reaganite model expected citizens to relinquish their choices to the state yet carry all of the responsibility for the results on their own. And that’s as useless as saying, “I want to be in complete control of what I do, make all of my own decisions. Yet I also expect somebody to catch me if as a result of those decisions I slip and fall.” Wishing for a system like this to come to existence is as useless as it was for Reagan to hope that one can successfully legislate morality in a fully market state.
Clarissa's Blog 
“Both Thatcher and Reagan relied on the idea that the state was no longer responsible for the welfare of the people. However, they still wanted to control morality through the legislative means of the state apparatus. And that’s just not going to work.”
And the people who inherited these views, the Reaganites and Thatcherites themselves, what horrible, noxious pieces of work they turned out to be! They invested in a whole atmosphere of being quick to try to exert moral control, whilst actively pulling out the rug from under people. Of course this is nasty and spiteful, but what used to bother me was that it was philosophically inconsistent.
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“Of course this is nasty and spiteful, but what used to bother me was that it was philosophically inconsistent.”
– Exactly. I hate this kind of thing. Any system of beliefs deserves interest but it has to be an actual consistent system of beliefs. I just can’t respect people who are inconsistent and illogical in this way.
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People who adopt the mindsets of T and R are undialectical. Given that this is so, it was always possible to trap them in an anti-dialectical mode of one’s own. One just asks them what they are saying and why they are saying it –and then when they give a response, you say it cannot be understood. Then you ask them again what they are saying and why they are saying it.
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