Thatcher and the Miner's Strike

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Example of 'class conflict'

1984 Miner's Strike: The government announce the closure of Cortonwood colliery in Yorkshire. The miners there walk out and begin industrial action that was to spread nationwide. At its height 80% of the nations miners were involved in the action (Waddington, 1992)

Subtopic

Battle of Orgreave: In what became known as the defining moment of the year long industrial action 6000 miners faced off against 8000 police officers at Orgreave coking plant in South Yorkshire (Adeney et al, 1988)

Pretext to the 1984 Miner's Strike: Throughout the 1970's and early '80's the government and NUM were in near constant conflict over what the miner's perceived low pay and poor working conditions (Waddington, 1992)

Heath: In fact, Edward Heath's government was brought down by NUM industrial action during the 1970's (BBC, 2004)

Growth of militancy: From the late '60's onwards, unions gained an increasingly militant edge in their dealings with government (Waddington, 1992)

Marxism: Karl Marx would arguably recognise this as the point at which Capitalism reaches maturity. Militancy therefore, is the result of growing social tensions that are present during capitialist maturity (Marx & Engels, 1848)

Rich get richer: coincidentally, the 1960's saw the start of a widening of wealth between those at the top (beourgeiosie) and those at the bottom (proletariat) (Parente et al, 1993)

The powerful NUM 'coalition': One of the most powerful of these union coalitions was the 500,000 strong National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) (BBC, 2004)

...up until the 1960's industrial disputes were usually settled between the NUM and government without the need for strike action (BBC, 2004)

Class Conflict

Growing disparity in Capitalism: As the Capitalist system matures the gap in the life conditions between the proletariat and beourgeoisie widens. This is attributed to the growing beourgeois wealth accumulated ever more efficiently from the toil of the proletariat workers (Rummel, 1979)

Growing social unrest: What starts as unrest in individual factories becomes, as capitalism matures, a more generalised struggle at a societal level. Workers start to organise themselves into coalitions (unions) with common interests and policies. At this point class consciousness is increased and the use of, and struggle for, political power occurs (Rummel, 1979)

Conflict: Marxism views society as being in constant conflict with each other along class lines. Those at the top (the oppressor) against those at the bottom (the oppressed)

..."Freeman and slave, patrician and plebian, lord and serf, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another" (Marx & Engels, 1848)

Marxist definition of class: Class is defined by the ownership of property. Ownership vests a person with the power to exclude others from the property and to use it for personal purposes (Dahrendorf, 1959)

Proletariat: Those who own their labour and sell it to the bourgeoisie for a wage (Dahrendorf, 1959)

Bourgeoisie: Those who own the means of production such as machinery and factory buildings, and whose source of income is profit (Dahrendorf, 1959)

Marxism: A theory that views the structure of society in relation to its class system, and the struggle between them is the engine of change in this structure (Rummel, 1979)

Intro

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