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What is the earliest known source of the quote about running out of other people's money?
Executive summary
The commonly quoted line “The problem/the trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money” is most widely attributed to Margaret Thatcher and appears in contemporary collections and speeches associated with her [1] [2]. Fact-checking reporting by Snopes traces a close original formulation to a Thames Television interview with Thatcher on 5 February 1976 in which she said, “They always run out of other people’s money,” as part of a longer remark [3].
1. How the line is usually presented — and why that matters
Public quotations present a compact, pithy sentence — “The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money” — that amplifies Thatcher’s critique of state spending; it appears repeatedly in quotation collections and political tributes tied to her name [1] [2]. Those later appearances help harden a short, memorable version in public memory, even though the precise phrasing varies across sources [2] [1].
2. The earliest documented instance cited by fact‑checkers
Investigative coverage by Snopes reports a specific early source: a Thames Television “This Week” interview conducted on 5 February 1976, when Thatcher was Conservative leader in opposition. Snopes says the interview included the line, in context: “Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people’s money” — which Snopes treats as the original utterance behind the condensed quote [3].
3. How later speeches and publications reinforced the ascription
After 1976 the sentiment recurs across Thatcher’s public remarks and in later compilations of her quotes. Conservative tributes and speech collections cite similar formulations — for example, Thatcher’s 1983 and other later speeches restate the theme that public spending depends ultimately on taxpayers’ earnings, language that dovetails with the pithy formulation [2] [4]. Such repetition in conservative think‑tank pieces and quote sites (AEI, LibQuotes) helped cement the line’s attribution to Thatcher [2] [4].
4. What contemporary reference works record
Reference compendia like Oxford Reference include the same idea in their entry on Thatcher, noting the summarized phrasing about socialism running out of other people’s money [5]. That shows mainstream reference sources recognize the association between Thatcher and the line, even when they present a paraphrase rather than a verbatim transcript [5].
5. Limits of the available reporting and open questions
Available sources here do not provide a primary transcript or video clip of the 5 February 1976 interview in full; Snopes summarizes the interview and quotes Thatcher’s line but the direct original broadcast record is not included among these items [3]. Also, the provided sources do not survey earlier uses by other writers or speakers to test whether the phrase (or a close variant) predates Thatcher — that question is “not found in current reporting” among these sources [3] [5].
6. Competing perspectives and potential agendas
Conservative outlets and quote compilers present the line as emblematic of Thatcher’s ideology and use it to highlight limited‑government arguments [2] [6]. Conversely, neutral fact‑checking (Snopes) focuses on accuracy of attribution and context, showing the shorter maxim is a condensed form of a longer remark [3]. Quotations sites and partisan tributes tend to favor memorable brevity; that editorial choice can obscure nuance and inflate claims of originality [2] [1].
7. Practical takeaway for readers and researchers
If you need to cite an authoritative origin: current reporting here points to Thatcher’s 5 February 1976 Thames Television interview as the earliest documented source for the line’s provenance, though often cited later in paraphrased form [3]. For rigorous work, seek the original interview transcript or contemporaneous news coverage (not included among these sources) to confirm exact wording and full context — available sources do not mention a verbatim transcript in this set [3].
8. Final note on accuracy versus myth
The weight of these sources links the maxim to Margaret Thatcher and shows a clear evolution from a contextual interview remark into a concise aphorism repeated in speeches and tributes; Snopes explicitly documents the 1976 interview as the basis for the popular quotation [3]. Readers should treat the short phrase as a paraphrase of Thatcher’s 1976 comment rather than a verbatim line first published in that exact wording in primary archival material provided here [3] [5].