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STUART HALL AND THE MARXIST CONCEPT OF IDEOLOGY 65

labourist and the fundamentalist left’, the recognition of the way in which
‘Thatcherism has managed to stitch up or “unify” the contradictory
strands in its discourse’ and the assertion that ‘the left have something to
learn as to the conduct of political struggle’ from the Thatcherite project
(Hall, 1985:120, 122, 119) I take to be empirically accurate propositions
and in no way reasons to accuse Hall of defending and celebrating
Thatcherism.
There is nothing wrong in trying to learn from the success of your
adversary. Gramsci did it, and never concealed, for instance, the lessons he
took from the Catholic religion. He admired the role which the catechism
played in pedagogically imprinting the masses with the religious
conception, he also recognized and appreciated the concern of the Catholic
church for keeping in one unified bloc the theologians and the common
people, and its readiness to repress the intellectuals when they threatened to
break that unity. However, although appreciating the hegemonic form he
was simultaneously profoundly critical of its content. The church wanted
to preserve the unity between intellectuals and common people but never
sought to elevate the common people to the level of the intellectuals, so
Gramsci was able to criticize the religious conception as antithetic to that of
the philosophy of practice which sought to construct an intellectual and
moral bloc which makes possible the intellectual progress of the masses
(Gramsci, 1973:331–3). I am convinced that Hall, having appreciated the
hegemonic form of Thatcherite politics has also been critical of its content,
even though his emphasis has probably been on the first aspect. Yet he
does not seem to recognize the specific role of Marx’s concept of ideology
in that critique. In wanting to rescue that role I am not arguing that this is
the only way in which something radically new can be said about
Thatcherism, I am just making the connection between Marx’s concept of
ideology and a certain necessary critical approach.
Marx’s critical theory can make a limited but significant contribution to
the understanding of Thatcherism as an ideological phenomenon. In fact, in
so far as Hall has been critical of Thatcherism, he seems to know what this
contribution is although he does not connect it with Marx’s concept. I can
only sketch here the general contours of such an analysis. It seems to me
that Thatcherism may be seen as a return, with a vengeance, to the old and
quintessential principles of bourgeois political ideology which had been
progressively obscured by years of social democracy, welfare state and
Keynesianism. These principles can well be encapsulated in Marx’s Eden of
the innate rights of man: Freedom, Equality, Property and Bentham. Mrs
Thatcher’s programme is basically saying, let us go back to the market, let
it rule our lives. The market is fair, efficient, egalitarian, it provides wealth
and freedom of choice. Hence her insistence on rolling back the frontiers of
the state, on cutting taxes, on educational choice, on providing
opportunities to buy your own house and shares in state enterprises, on