Socialists cry 'Power to the people', and raise the clenched fist as they say it. We all know what they really mean-power over people, power to the State.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Thatcher argues that socialist calls for power to the people are actually demands for state control over individuals.
- In plain terms
- Socialists say they want power for everyone but really want the government to control people.
- What can you take from it?
- Watch how political rhetoric about empowerment can hide desires for centralized control.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- How do we distinguish between true empowerment and state control?
- Is state power always opposed to individual freedom?
Another view
This view simplifies complex socialist theories that often emphasize collective welfare over state power.
More from Margaret Thatcher
Don't you think that's the way to persuade more companies to come to this region and get more jobs-because I want them-for the people who are unemployed. Not a…
Permalink to quote #30 From France to the Phillipines, from Jamaica to Japan, from Malaysia to Mexico, from Sri Lanka to Singapore, privatisation is on the move...The policies we hav…
Permalink to quote #32 We must try to find ways to starve the terrorist and the hijacker of the oxygen of publicity on which they depend.
Permalink to quote #29
Related quotes
What other applications this principle of Authority, once adopted in the economic sphere, will develop is very evident. It means the absolute control by the ma…
Benjamin TuckerBenjamin Tucker quote #8 I hate extremes of any kind. Communism and the National Front both seek the domination of the state over the individual. They both, I believe crush the right o…
Margaret ThatcherMargaret Thatcher quote #9 The claim of the State Socialists, however, that this right would not be exercised in matters pertaining to the individual in the more intimate and private rel…
Benjamin TuckerBenjamin Tucker quote #9