Interview for Woman’s Own (“no such thing as society”), September 23, 1987. Margaret Thatcher Foundation. Also find it here and here.
“No such thing as society”: what it means for today’s welfare debate. By Isabel Hardman. The Spectator, April 9, 2013.
Thatcher:
I think
we have gone through a period when too many children and people have been given
to understand “I have a problem, it is the Government's job to cope with it!”
or “I have a problem, I will go and get a grant to cope with it!” “I am
homeless, the Government must house me!” and so they are casting their problems
on society and who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men
and women and there are families and no government can do anything except
through people and people look to themselves first. It is our duty to look
after ourselves and then also to help look after our neighbour and life is a
reciprocal business and people have got the entitlements too much in mind
without the obligations, because there is no such thing as an entitlement
unless someone has first met an obligation and it is, I think, one of the
tragedies in which many of the benefits we give, which were meant to reassure
people that if they were sick or ill there was a safety net and there was help,
that many of the benefits which were meant to help people who were
unfortunate—“It is all right. We joined together and we have these insurance
schemes to look after it”. That was the objective, but somehow there are some
people who have been manipulating the system and so some of those help and
benefits that were meant to say to people: “All right, if you cannot get a job,
you shall have a basic standard of living!” but when people come and say: “But
what is the point of working? I can get as much on the dole!” You say: “Look”
It is not from the dole. It is your neighbour who is supplying it and if you
can earn your own living then really you have a duty to do it and you will feel
very much better!”
There
is also something else I should say to them: “If that does not give you a basic
standard, you know, there are ways in which we top up the standard. You can get
your housing benefit.”
But it
went too far. If children have a problem, it is society that is at fault. There
is no such thing as society. There is living tapestry of men and women and
people and the beauty of that tapestry and the quality of our lives will depend
upon how much each of us is prepared to take responsibility for ourselves and
each of us prepared to turn round and help by our own efforts those who are
unfortunate. And the worst things we have in life, in my view, are where
children who are a great privilege and a trust—they are the fundamental great
trust, but they do not ask to come into the world, we bring them into the
world, they are a miracle, there is nothing like the miracle of life—we have
these little innocents and the worst crime in life is when those children, who
would naturally have the right to look to their parents for help, for comfort,
not only just for the food and shelter but for the time, for the understanding,
turn round and not only is that help not forthcoming, but they get either neglect
or worse than that, cruelty.
How do
you set about teaching a child religion at school, God is like a father, and
she thinks “like someone who has been cruel to them?” It is those children you
cannot . . . you just have to try to say they can only learn from school or we
as their neighbour have to try in some way to compensate. This is why my
foremost charity has always been the National Society for the Prevention of
Cruelty to Children, because over a century ago when it was started, it was
hoped that the need for it would dwindle to nothing and over a hundred years
later the need for it is greater, because we now realise that the great
problems in life are not those of housing and food and standard of living. When
we have got all of those, when we have got reasonable housing when you compare
us with other countries, when you have got a reasonable standard of living and
you have got no-one who is hungry or need be hungry, when you have got an
education system that teaches everyone—not as good as we would wish—you are
left with what? You are left with the problems of human nature, and a child who
has not had what we and many of your readers would regard as their birthright—a
good home—it is those that we have to get out and help, and you know, it is not
only a question of money as everyone will tell you; not your background in
society. It is a question of human nature and for those children it is
difficult to say: “You are responsible for your behaviour!” because they just
have not had a chance and so I think that is one of the biggest problems and I
think it is the greatest sin.
