Dizia Margaret Tatcher em 1987:

"I think we have gone through a period when too many children and people have been given to understand "I have a problem, it is the Government's job to cope with it!" or "I have a problem, I will go and get a grant to cope with it!" "I am homeless, the Government must house me!" and so they are casting their problems on society and who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then also to help look after our neighbour and life is a reciprocal business and people have got the entitlements too much in mind without the obligations."

À clássica visão maximalista de esquerda respondeu Tatcher em 1987 com esta visão maximalista de direita. Sendo que a verdade estará, como sempre, algures no meio, convém redefinir hoje o que é "a sociedade", quem verdadeiramente a compõe e o que é responsabilidade pública e o que é responsabilidade privada/pessoal, e, depois, se há dinheiro para a responsabilidade pública assumida como adequada. Mas Tatcher fez bem o seu trabalho: quantos de nós hoje nos definimos realmente como "seres sociais"?