It is not easy to define what Thatcherism is because it has very complicated and variegated aspects. Thatcherism, however, can be roughly defined as an ideological and hegemonic system of new conservative and neo춍iberalist values, which tries to dismantle the idea of the postwar social welfare in Britain on the ground of the merciless logic of the market and repress the social conflicts caused in the process with both coercive law and authoritarian values like patriarchy or chauvinistic nationalism.
Thatcherism is an extreme and unilateral value system in favor of the capital. Armed with the extremist logic of the market, it forces the British society to take off its traditional clothes of social welfare and adapt itself to the social world dominated by the economical value of the market. Also it plays an important part in the rapid transformation of the British society from the Fordist system to the post쵧ordist one in which the consumption of information, culture and knowledge is substantially integrated into the production process of the capital.
In terms of its cultural value, Thatcherism intends to infuse the market value of capital in all academic and cultural institutions and make them accept the professionalist value catering to the demands of the market. As a result, cultural studies rises as one of the most important fields in the academic world because it is not only free of the highbrow and old춆ashioned values which the disciplines of the existing humanities have, but also conforms to the practical and professionalist demands of the market. This kind of cultural studies diverges from cultural studies in the 1960~70s in that cultural studies of the past dismissed much of the potentiality of popular culture and strongly resisted the homogenizing demands of capitalist culture. However, cultural studies of today seems to have a tendency to acknowledge the consumerist enjoyment of culture, evaluate the possibility of the market positively, and make a dangerous wager with capital.
This article tries to critically examine these social and cultural changes taking place in the British society in the aftermath of Thatcherism and consider the possibility of cultural studies through the changed status of labor, not that of capital.