The Meaning of Privatization

Privatization is a fuzzy concept that evokes sharp political reactions. It covers a great range of ideas and policies, varying from the eminently reasonable to the wildly impractical. Yet however varied and at times unclear in its meaning, privatization has unambiguous political origins and objectives. It emerges from the countermovement against the growth of government in the West and represents the most serious conservative effort of our time to formulate a positive alternative. Privatization proposals do not aim merely to return services to their original location in the private sphere. Some proposals seek to create new kinds of market relations and promise results comparable or superior to conventional public programs. Hence it is a mistake to define and dismiss the movement as simply a replay of traditional opposition to state intervention and expenditure. The current wave of privatization initiatives opens a new chapter in the conflict over the public-private balance. This Article attempts to clarify the meaning of privatization as an idea, as theory and rhetoric, and as a political practice. In the process I hope to explain why I generally oppose privatization, even though I favor some specific proposals that privatization covers. But apart from this political judgment, I take privatization seriously as a policy movement and as a process that show every sign of reconstituting major institutional domains of contemporary society.

[1]  J. Galbraith.  The Affluent Society , 1958 .

[2]  Philippe Ariès,et al.  Centuries of Childhood , 1960 .

[3]  H. Demsetz.  Toward a Theory of Property Rights , 1967 .

[4]  Albert O. Hirschman,et al.  Exit, Voice, and Loyalty , 1970 .

[5]  W. Niskanen.  Bureaucracy and representative government , 1971 .

[6]  D. G. Davies.  The Efficiency of Public versus Private Firms, the Case of Australia's Two Airlines , 1971, The Journal of Law and Economics.

[7]  E. G. Furubotn,et al.  Property Rights and Economic Theory: A Survey of Recent Literature , 1972 .

[8]  Roger S. Ahlbrandt.  Efficiency in the provision of fire services , 1973 .

[9]  P. Willmott,et al.  The Symmetrical Family , 2023 .

[10]  Samuel P. Huntington,et al.  The Crisis of Democracy , 1975 .

[11]  Richard Sennett,et al.  The Fall of Public Man , 1977 .

[12]  Annmarie Hauck Walsh,et al.  The public's business: The politics and practices of government corporations , 1978 .

[13]  J. T. Bennett,et al.  Public versus private provision of collective goods and services: garbage collection revisited , 1979 .

[14]  G. Frug.  The City as a Legal Concept , 1980 .

[15]  Lloyd D. Musolf,et al.  The Blurred Boundaries of Public Administration , 1980 .

[16]  Robert J. Smith.  Resolving the Tragedy of the Commons by Creating Private Property Rights in Wildlife , 1981 .

[17]  J. Elshtain.  Public Man, Private Woman , 2020 .

[18]  P. Ellefson,et al.  From public land to nonindustrial private forest: a Minnesota case study ( USA). , 1982 .

[19]  K. Klare.  The Public/Private Distinction in Labor Law , 1982 .

[20]  Morton J. Horwitz.  History of the Public/Private Distinction , 1982 .

[21]  W. Baumol,et al.  Contestable Markets and the Theory of Industry Structure , 1982 .

[22]  V. Smith,et al.  Public versus private ownership: The federal lands case , 1983 .

[23]  S. Brittan.  THE POLITICS AND ECONOMICS OF PRIVATISATION , 1984 .

[24]  S. Butler.  Privatizing Federal Spending: A Strategy to Eliminate the Deficit , 1985 .

[25]  P. Saunders.  Public Expenditure and Economic Performance in OECD Countries , 1985, Journal of Public Policy.

[26]  C. Mayer,et al.  Selling Public Assets: Techniques and Financial Implications , 1985 .

[27]  Aaron Wildavsky,et al.  A History of Taxation and Expenditure in the Western World , 1986 .

[28]  G. Yarrow.  PRIVATIZATION IN THEORY AND PRACTICE , 1986 .

[29]  R. Bailey.  Uses and Misuses of Privatization , 1987 .

[30]  P. Starr.  The Limits of Privatization , 1987 .

[31]  L. Alessi.  Property Rights and Privatization , 1987 .

[32]  S. Hanke,et al.  Privatizing the Public Domain , 1987 .

[33]  R. Kuttner.  The economic illusion : false choices between prosperity and social justice , 1987 .

[34]  S. Hanke.  Prospects for privatization , 1987 .

[35]  E. Savas,et al.  Privatization: The Key to Better Government , 1989, American Political Science Review.

[36]  P. Berger,et al.  To Empower People: The Role of Mediating Structures in Public Policy , 1989, The Nature of the Nonprofit Sector.

[37]  Robert B. Reich,et al.  The Power of Public Ideas , 1989, American Political Science Review.