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Johnson's use of the rhetoric of 'wealth creators' demonstrates a continuing reliance on the Thatcherite idea of 'trickle-down' economics. But even in the 1980s, it required much political spinning of statistics to keep the trickle-down notion alive. Labour should now challenge it vigorously.
From Major to Cameron to May, all Conservative prime ministers of the past thirty years have distanced themselves from the more divisive parts of Margaret Thatcher's legacy; and Boris Johnson has become the latest incumbent in this line to cultivate an image of himself as a proponent of One Nation Conservatism. Most recently, he appeared to repudiate one of Thatcher's most-cited phrases when he declared in an address about the nation's response to the current pandemic crisis that 'there really is such a thing as society'. Johnson's self-styled One Nation credentials have been given credence by commentators at home and abroad, though in fact, as Robert Saunders has pointed out, his understanding of society 'would have fitted comfortably in Thatcher's vision'.1 A central tenet of Thatcherite thinking that has been echoed by Johnson is the belief in free-market trickle-down economics. Even if Johnson has at times appeared to be willing 'to go beyond trickle-down', his attachment to this political idea is encapsulated in his continued use of the rhetoric of the 'wealth creators'.2 The term is laden with ideological meanings, interpretations of the past and prescriptions for political economy that are rooted historically in Thatcherite political thought. These ideational associations were not called out by the Labour leadership in the recent general election campaign.
Keith Joseph and other progenitors of Thatcherism mythologised entrepreneurs as 'wealth creators', a political catchphrase that was linked to a wider anti-egalitarian discourse. This attributed the creation of wealth to the genius of individual entrepreneurs, decoupling it from the contributions made by millions of employees on a daily basis. The wealth creators generated prosperity for everyone, the theory went, because the riches produced by entrepreneurs would trickle down to benefit the whole of society. The same argument was turned against the post-war welfare state: social security and redistributive policies not only stifled self-dependency and responsibility, thereby harming the moral fabric of society at large; they also reduced incentives for the rich to create the wealth that would...