By Paul Roderick Gregory, Contributor   England yesterday laid to rest former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher with pomp and circumstances not seen since the Queen Mom’s funeral of 2002. Thatcher’s detractors turned their backs to her passing coffin, held signs “Rest in Shame,” and pushed the song “Ding Dong the Wicked Witch is Dead” to the top of the charts. Margaret Thatcher’s enemies will never forgive her for breaking the unions’ stranglehold, for her support of budgetary discipline, her privatization of England’s decaying state companies, and for deregulation. Her detractors will not forgive her alliance with Ronald Reagan against the USSR’s evil empire. They will not forgive her support of the first war against Saddam Hussein. Thatcher’s detractors will never concede that she reversed England’s fifty years decline as the “sick man of Europe” and restored her country to the top ranks of world economic powers. When I began teaching comparative economics in 1970, I showed students that it was rare for countries to undergo dramatic changes in their relative economic position. The rise of Japan starting in the 1870s was one of the few exceptions of a rising economic power. England – at the turn of the 20th century the world’s richest economy — was the rare exception of a country in an economic tailspin relative to its neighbors. I taught a whole chapter about the “British disease” plagued by runaway unions, ineffective demand management, decaying state enterprises, and overregulation. The British disease was evident in the many anecdotes of British economic inefficiency, but it was even more apparent in the collapse of England’s relative economic position in Europe:  In 1950, Germany and France’s per capita GDPs were between two third and three quarters of England’s. When Thatcher became Prime Minister in 1979, Germany and France were between ten and fifteen percent richer than England.  In 1950, England was twice as affluent as Italy. By 1979, the two had essentially the same per capita income. The mighty England was reduced to being Italy! Notably, the Thatcher Revolution did not end with Thatcher.  Thatcherism convinced the Labor Party to become New Labor. New Labor, unlike Old Labor, could win elections, and it continued the policies of Thatcher. After forty years of Thatcher and New Labor policies, England is again more affluent than rivals France and Germany, and it has left Italy behind in the dust. Over England’s half century of “British Disease,” various labor and Tory governments sought cures. None succeeded until Thatcher. I would challenge any economist to come up with an answer for the cure of the British disease other than the Thatcher reforms.  Unless those who hate Mrs. Thatcher can come up with another reason for England’s recovery, they should admit that her policies have made them on average $3,000 better off each year based on the following calculation:   In 1979, Germany and France’s combined GDP per capita was 14 percent higher than the UK. Under the favorable assumption that a UK without Thatcher could have maintained that deficit, its current GDP

From: http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderickgregory/2013/04/18/maggies-critics-each-owe-her-3000/