ABSTRACT
Strong political leadership is essential to change the balance between state and market and to remake the character of the state. The election of the Thatcher Conservative Government in Britain in 1979 and of President Reagan in the United States America in 1980 brought to power political leaders who were committed in principle to pursuing radical change of this kind. Political leaders in most Western countries at this time were moving in the same direction of government retrenchment and market liberalisation. The new ideology of individualism was mixed with a strong strain of social conservatism over such issues as drugs, crime, abortion, sexual behaviour and religious observance. Margaret Thatcher herself was an unusually active and energetic Prime Minister, being more like 'the chief executive of a very large corporation with a hand-picked board of directors' than the chairman of a formally equal group of Cabinet ministers.
