This article is part of a series about Margaret Thatcher
Bibliography Electoral history Honours MP for Finchley Public Bodies (Admission to Meetings) Act Secretary of State for Education and Science Circular 10/70 Withdrawal of school milk Leader of the Opposition Shadow Cabinet 1975 leadership election 1979 VoNC in Callaghan ministry Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Premiership Policies Thatcherism domestic economic other Appointments Ministers wets and dries Articles by ministry and term: 1979–1983 First ministry 1979 election "The lady's not for turning" "TINA" 1979 budget 1980 budget 1981 budget 1982 budget 1983 budget Falklands War Right to Buy 1983–1987 Second ministry 1983 re-election 1984 budget 1985 budget 1986 budget 1987 budget Anglo-Irish Agreement Big Bang Brighton bombing Joint Declaration Miners' strike UK rebate Westland affair 1987–1990 Third ministry 1987 re-election 1988 budget 1989 budget 1989 leadership election 1990 budget 1990 leadership election and resignation Bruges speech Poll tax Sermon on the Mound Post–prime minister Ceremonial funeral Legacy Publications The Downing Street Years (1993) The Path to Power (1995) Statecraft (2003)
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"There is no alternative" (TINA) is a political slogan arguing that capitalism is the only viable system. The slogan is strongly associated with the policies and persona of the Conservative British prime minister Margaret Thatcher.^[1]

History of use

19th century

Historically, the phrase may be traced to its emphatic use by the 19th-century classical liberal thinker and Social-Darwinist Herbert Spencer in his Social Statics.^{[2][non-primary source needed]}

Thatcher

In a speech to the Conservative Women's Conference on 21 May 1980, Thatcher appealed to the notion saying, "We have to get our production and our earnings into balance. There's no easy popularity in what we are proposing but it is fundamentally sound. Yet I believe people accept there's no real alternative." Later in the speech, she returned to the theme: "What's the alternative? To go on as we were before? All that leads to is higher spending. And that means more taxes, more borrowing, higher interest rates more inflation, more unemployment."^[3]

The slogan was often used by Thatcher.^{[citation needed][4]} The phrase is used to signify Thatcher's claim that the market economy is the best, right and only system that works, and that debate about this is over. One critic characterized the meaning of the slogan as: "Globalised capitalism, so called free markets and free trade were the best ways to build wealth, distribute services and grow a society's economy. Deregulation's good, if not God."^[5] By contrast, Thatcher described her support of markets as flowing from a more basic moral argument; specifically, she argued that the market-principle of choice flows from the moral principle that for human behavior to be moral requires free choice by people.^[4]

2010s austerity

Angela Merkel's use of the term alternativlos (literally "alternative-less"; without alternative) in relation to her responses to the European sovereign-debt crisis in 2010 led to the term becoming "un-word of the year".^[6]

In 2013, Prime Minister David Cameron resurrected the phrase, stating "If there was another way I would take it. But there is no alternative"—referring to austerity in the United Kingdom.^[7]

Criticism

Opponents of the principle used it in a derisory manner. For instance, cabinet minister Norman St John-Stevas, one of the leading "wets", nicknamed Thatcher "Tina", after the acronym TINA.^[8] The critic of globalization Susan George coined the opposing slogan "another world is possible" in 2001.^[9][10]