ABSTRACT
Questioning and uncertainty of the kind was fruitful ground for the brand of conviction politics that became known as Thatcherism that took hold in the 1980s. Policies that were the outcome of the new form of economic radicalism will perhaps prove to be less radical in their effects than the claims originally made for them would suggest. The core proposition is that during the 1970s expenditure on 'non-marketable' services crowded out expenditure on 'marketable output. The replacement of the ideology of Keynesianism with that of monetarism consequently did little to alter the macro-stance of economic policy. Privatization and deregulation did not reverse the process of growing concentration in British industry. Economic decline defined as a relative concept has strong historical meaning. Economic growth was frequently concentrated in certain sectors and/or regions of an economy with a correspondingly high variance in growth rates.
