ABSTRACT
A sharp decline in membership and income, a heavy loss of political power, a deteriorating capacity to mobilise members for conflict but continuing enormous public hostility: the reversal of the position of British trade unions since they reached the peak of their power in the years around 1974 has been extraordinary but should not be surprising. The right, both in Britain and elsewhere in the industrialised West, did not take kindly to the intensified social conflict and associated rise of left-wing forces that occurred generally from the late 1960s onwards. Across a whole range of policy areas the right equipped itself for a counterattack, with the aim of reversing the full employment and tolerant social climate which had prevailed since the 1960s and which had done so much to strengthen the confidence of organised labour and other forces of the left. Monetarism, an attack on the welfare state, the mobilisation of popular right-wing values and a more aggressive role for the forces of civil order are among the main products of this reorientation. The policies have been put into action both when right-wing parties have come to power and, irrespective of Governments, through such agencies as central banks and multinational enterprises.
