Download or read book The Privatization of Everything written by Donald Cohen and published by The New Press. This book was released on 2021-11-23 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book the American Prospect calls “an essential resource for future reformers on how not to govern,” by America’s leading defender of the public interest and a bestselling historian “An essential read for those who want to fight the assault on public goods and the commons.” —Naomi Klein A sweeping exposé of the ways in which private interests strip public goods of their power and diminish democracy, the hardcover edition of The Privatization of Everything elicited a wide spectrum of praise: Kirkus Reviews hailed it as “a strong, economics-based argument for restoring the boundaries between public goods and private gains,” Literary Hub featured the book on a Best Nonfiction list, calling it “a far-reaching, comprehensible, and necessary book,” and Publishers Weekly dubbed it a “persuasive takedown of the idea that the private sector knows best.” From Diane Ravitch (“an important new book about the dangers of privatization”) to Heather McGhee (“a well-researched call to action”), the rave reviews mirror the expansive nature of the book itself, covering the impact of privatization on every aspect of our lives, from water and trash collection to the justice system and the military. Cohen and Mikaelian also demonstrate how citizens can—and are—wresting back what is ours: A Montana city took back its water infrastructure after finding that they could do it better and cheaper. Colorado towns fought back well-funded campaigns to preserve telecom monopolies and hamstring public broadband. A motivated lawyer fought all the way to the Supreme Court after the state of Georgia erected privatized paywalls around its legal code. “Enlightening and sobering” (Rosanne Cash), The Privatization of Everything connects the dots across a wide range of issues and offers what Cash calls “a progressive voice with a firm eye on justice [that] can carefully parse out complex issues for those of us who take pride in citizenship.”

Download or read book The Privatized State written by Chiara Cordelli and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-11-24 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why government outsourcing of public powers is making us less free Many governmental functions today—from the management of prisons and welfare offices to warfare and financial regulation—are outsourced to private entities. Education and health care are funded in part through private philanthropy rather than taxation. Can a privatized government rule legitimately? The Privatized State argues that it cannot. In this boldly provocative book, Chiara Cordelli argues that privatization constitutes a regression to a precivil condition—what philosophers centuries ago called "a state of nature." Developing a compelling case for the democratic state and its administrative apparatus, she shows how privatization reproduces the very same defects that Enlightenment thinkers attributed to the precivil condition, and which only properly constituted political institutions can overcome—defects such as provisional justice, undue dependence, and unfreedom. Cordelli advocates for constitutional limits on privatization and a more democratic system of public administration, and lays out the central responsibilities of private actors in contexts where governance is already extensively privatized. Charting a way forward, she presents a new conceptual account of political representation and novel philosophical theories of democratic authority and legitimate lawmaking. The Privatized State shows how privatization undermines the very reason political institutions exist in the first place, and advocates for a new way of administering public affairs that is more democratic and just.

Download or read book Privatizing Social Security written by Martin Feldstein and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2008-04-15 with total page 484 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume represents the most important work to date on one of the pressing policy issues of the moment: the privatization of social security. Although social security is facing enormous fiscal pressure in the face of an aging population, there has been relatively little published on the fundamentals of essential reform through privatization. Privatizing Social Security fills this void by studying the methods and problems involved in shifting from the current system to one based on mandatory saving in individual accounts. "Timely and important. . . . [Privatizing Social Security] presents a forceful case for a radical shift from the existing unfunded, pay-as-you-go single national program to a mandatory funded program with individual savings accounts. . . . An extensive analysis of how a privatized plan would work in the United States is supplemented with the experiences of five other countries that have privatized plans." —Library Journal "[A] high-powered collection of essays by top experts in the field."—Timothy Taylor, Public Interest

Download or read book Water Capitalism written by Walter E. Block and published by Lexington Books. This book was released on 2015-10-30 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Water covers some 75% of the earth’s surface, while land covers 25%, approximately. Yet the former accounts for less than 1% of world GDP, the latter 99% plus. Part of the reason for this imbalance is that there are more people located on land than water. But a more important explanation is that while land is privately owned, water is unowned (with the exception of a few small lakes and ponds), or governmentally owned (rivers, large lakes). This gives rise to the tragedy of the commons: when something is unowned, people have less of an incentive to care for it, preserve it, and protect it, than when they own it. As a result we have oil spills, depletion of fish stocks, threatened extinction of some species (e.g. whales), shark attacks, polluted and dried-up rivers, misallocated water, unsafe boating, piracy, and other indices of economic disarray which, if they had occurred on the land, would have been more easily identified as the result of the tragedy of the commons and/or government ownership and mismanagement. The purpose of this book is to make the case for privatization of all bodies of water, without exception. In the tragic example of the Soviet Union, the 97% of the land owned by the state accounted for 75% of the crops. On the 3% of the land privately owned, 25% of the crops were grown. The obvious mandate requires that we privatize the land, and prosper. The present volume applies this lesson, in detail, to bodies of water.

Download or read book Privatize This written by Richard McGowan and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2011-03-03 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers an expert examination of the ideology and motives behind the privatization or the nationalization of an industry, based on real case studies. Is it always more effective and less expensive to use taxpayer dollars to engage private companies rather than have the government run enterprises itself? Do consumers always benefit from the privatization of services? What happens when privatization stops being an abstract, theoretical debate and is actually put to the test in the real world? Privatize This? Assessing the Opportunities and Costs of Privatization is the place to find out. Privatize This? provides a clear, easy-to-apply model for evaluating the pros and cons of the privatization process and then puts the model to work in examining nine real-world case studies—ranging from Spain's privatization of its cigarette industry to Pennsylvania's "state store system" for selling liquor. Throughout, the book focuses on the central issues of privatization—profit versus public good, protection from fraud and waste—while also showing how the recent economic upheaval has changed public opinion and public policy on privatization.

Download or read book Reign of Error written by Diane Ravitch and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2014-08-26 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From one of the foremost authorities on education in the United States, former U.S. assistant secretary of education, an incisive, comprehensive look at today’s American school system that argues against those who claim it is broken and beyond repair; an impassioned but reasoned call to stop the privatization movement that is draining students and funding from our public schools. In a chapter-by-chapter breakdown she puts forth a plan for what can be done to preserve and improve our public schools. She makes clear what is right about U.S. education, how policy makers are failing to address the root causes of educational failure, and how we can fix it.

Download or read book Constitutional Coup written by Jon D. Michaels and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2017-10-23 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Americans hate bureaucracy—though they love the services it provides—and demand that government run like a business. Hence today’s privatization revolution. Jon Michaels shows how the fusion of politics and profits commercializes government and consolidates state power in ways the Constitution’s framers endeavored to disaggregate.

Download or read book Privatization in Malaysia written by Jeff Tan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2007-10-02 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores privatization in Malaysia, focusing in particular on how political constraints resulted in the failure of four major privatizations: the national sewerage company (IWK), Kuala Lumpur Light Rail Transit (LRT), national airline (MAS), and national car company (Proton).

Download or read book Privatizing Russia written by Maxim Boycko and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 1997-01-22 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Privatizing Russia offers an inside look at one of the most remarkable reforms in recent history. Having started on the back burner of Russian politics in the fall of 1991, mass privatization was completed on July 1, 1994, with two thirds of the Russian industry privately owned, a rapidly rising stock market, and 40 million Russians owning company shares. The authors, all key participants in the reform effort, describe the events and the ideas driving privatization. They argue that successful reformers must recognize privatization as a process of depoliticizing firms in the face of massive opposition: making the firm responsive to market rather than political influences. The authors first review the economic theory of property rights, identifying the political influence on firms as the fundamental failure of property rights under socialism. They detail the process of coalition building and compromise that ultmately shaped privatization. The main elements of the Russian program -- corporatization, voucher use, and voucher auctions -- are described, as is the responsiveness of privatized firms to outside investors. Finally, the market values of privatized assets are assessed for indications of how much progress the country has made toward reforming its economy. In many respects, privatization has been a great success. Market concepts of property ownership and corporate management are shaking up Russian firms at a breathtaking pace, creating powerful economic and political stimuli for continuation of market reforms. At the same time, the authors caution, the political landscape remains treacherous as old-line politicians reluctantly cede their property rights and authority over firms.

Download or read book Water Wars written by Vandana Shiva and published by North Atlantic Books. This book was released on 2016-07-26 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Acclaimed author and award-winning scientist and activist Vandana Shiva lucidly details the severity of the global water shortage, calling the water crisis “the most pervasive, most severe, and most invisible dimension of the ecological devastation of the earth.” She sheds light on the activists who are fighting corporate maneuvers to convert the life-sustaining resource of water into more gold for the elites and uses her knowledge of science and society to outline the emergence of corporate culture and the historical erosion of communal water rights. Using the international water trade and industrial activities such as damming, mining, and aquafarming as her lens, Shiva exposes the destruction of the earth and the disenfranchisement of the world's poor as they are stripped of rights to a precious common good. Revealing how many of the most important conflicts of our time, most often camouflaged as ethnic wars or religious wars, are in fact conflicts over scarce but vital natural resources, she calls for a movement to preserve water access for all and offers a blueprint for global resistance based on examples of successful campaigns. Featuring a new introduction by the author, this edition of Water Wars celebrates the spiritual and traditional role water has played in communities throughout history and warns that water privatization threatens cultures and livelihoods worldwide.

Download or read book The Financial Economics of Privatization written by William L. Megginson and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2005-01-13 with total page 533 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since 1981, over 100 governments around the world have raised over $1 trillion through the sale of SOEs to private investors. Privatization programs have transformed the role of the state in virtually all-major economies, and have massively increased the capitalization and liquidity of all non-U.S. stock markets. The focus of this book lies on where privatization stands today and what are the next frontiers, the why and how behind countries who privatize certain industries, whether privatization works as an economic tool and important insights relevant to financial institutions such as how to value privatized industries, how share offerings differ from private offerings, and how countries go about harnessing private capital. The book will also represent a key and unique source for information related to the details of asset sales privatization, a summary of statistics of privatized companies from 54 international stock exchanges, regulatory changes and sources for privatization information for investors, government officials, bankers and financial specialists. The volume will serve as an invaluable reference for professionals and as a core or supplementary text in privatization courses.

Download or read book How Governments Privatize written by Mark Cassell and published by Georgetown University Press. This book was released on 2003-08-01 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Governments throughout the world confront enormous challenges when divesting. Whether it is poor-performing bank loans in Japan and Korea, military bases in the United States, or real estate in eastern Europe, the challenge of public divestment is more than just a question of how to map a path to economic efficiency. Conventional wisdom in public management and privatization literature says that the execution of such enormous tasks as divestment is typically done poorly, and that the government strategy is likely to be inefficient. Mark Cassell argues that privatization must be understood as a political and administrative puzzle rather than simply an exercise in economic efficiency. This study of two successful divestment agencies — the U.S. Resolution Trust Corporation and the German Treuhandanstalt — presents a complex understanding of the two agencies' performance in privatizing hundreds of billions of dollars of assets following two very different crises, the savings and loan debacle in the United States and unification in Germany. In the U.S., the worst economic problem since the Great Depression forced the government to recreate and reshape private property on an immense scale. In Germany, melding East and West Germany involved converting an entire national economy that employed more than four million people. In each case, unassuming public agencies handled two of the largest public sales of assets in this century. Cassell identifies the importance and effects of managerial structures and of national institutions — legislatures and executives — on the outcomes of the reform efforts. This book will be of interest to those interested in alternatives to traditional public-sector structures, electoral connections to bureaucracies, comparative political economy, and the historic events of the aftermath of the savings and loan crisis and German unification. It is crucial reading for policy and public administration practitioners and scholars alike.

Download or read book Governance Regulation and Privatization in the Asia Pacific Region written by Takatoshi Ito and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2007-11-01 with total page 483 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the last twenty-five years, there has been an acceleration in the move from government regulation towards privatization. Governance, Regulation, and Privatization in the Asia-Pacific Region is the first thoroughgoing account of the relative success of the different approaches to privatization as undertaken in Korea, China, Australia, and Japan. In most contexts, privatization is expected to yield greater efficiency and cost effectiveness while avoiding the corruption and bloated budgets of government regulation or monopoly control. But broad-scale privatization, if ill designed, has also yielded its share of difficulties in East Asia. Privatization sometimes has created a vacuum in corporate governance for some of the region's most important industries and in some cases merely reinstated the monopoly-like configurations. The papers presented in this book discuss the experiences of privatization in several industries, including railroad and telecom, corporate governance problems, accounting issues, and challenges for the future in East Asian countries. The first section is theoretical in nature and proposes boundaries among government protection, market freedom, and shareholder expectations. The second part is constituted by country case studies, beginning with an analysis of both the Korean financial crisis that followed its 1997 law to privatize large, public sector corporations and the new ways Korean corporations finance themselves. Following is an evaluation of China's approach to privatization, with an in-depth look at the financial transitions of companies slated for initial public offering. Providing provocative examples of the methods of privatization in the Asia-Pacific region specifically, these papers will be of huge import to any economist or policymaker interested in transposing those successes for their own region.

Download or read book Privatization of Water Services in the United States written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2002-08-20 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the quest to reduce costs and improve the efficiency of water and wastewater services, many communities in the United States are exploring the potential advantages of privatization of those services. Unlike other utility services, local governments have generally assumed responsibility for providing water services. Privatization of such services can include the outright sale of system assets, or various forms of public-private partnershipsâ€"from the simple provision of supplies and services, to private design construction and operation of treatment plants and distribution systems. Many factors are contributing to the growing interest in the privatization of water services. Higher operating costs, more stringent federal water quality and waste effluent standards, greater customer demands for quality and reliability, and an aging water delivery and wastewater collection and treatment infrastructure are all challenging municipalities that may be short of funds or technical capabilities. For municipalities with limited capacities to meet these challenges, privatization can be a viable alternative. Privatization of Water Services evaluates the fiscal and policy implications of privatization, scenarios in which privatization works best, and the efficiencies that may be gained by contracting with private water utilities.

Download or read book The Right Privatization written by Sergio G. Lazzarini and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-04-07 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The public debate is rife with polarized views of how to deliver essential services such as education, health, and security. While some tout privatization as a way to supplant bad governments, others warn that private firms maximize profits at the expense of socially oriented service attributes. In reality, all forms of service delivery—public, private and hybrid public private-collaborations—have merits and flaws. This book scrutinizes the menu of delivery forms in public services and the conditions that should make them work. It argues that privatization benefits from capable government units committing to well-defined policy objectives, mobilizing critical resources, and incentivizing effective and inclusive delivery. Societies counting on capable governments can also reject single solutions and experiment with plural paths of improvement, where public and private organizations co-exist and learn from each other. This book will appeal to students, academics, managers and policy makers interested in examining the public-private boundary and the many ramifications of this focal issue.

Download or read book Outsourcing Sovereignty written by Paul R. Verkuil and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2007-12-19 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reliance on the private military industry and the privatization of public functions has left our government less able to govern effectively. When decisions that should have been taken by government officials are delegated (wholly or in part) to private contractors without appropriate oversight, the public interest is jeopardized. Books on private military have described the problem well, but they have not offered prescriptions or solutions this book does.

Download or read book The Impact of Selling the Federal Helium Reserve written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2000-06-18 with total page 98 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Helium Privatization Act of 1996 (P.L. 104-273) directs the Department of the Interior to begin liquidating the U.S. Federal Helium Reserve by 2005 in a manner consistent with "minimum market disruption" and at a price given by a formula specified in the act. It also mandates that the Department of the Interior "enter into appropriate arrangements with the National Academy of Sciences to study and report on whether such disposal of helium reserves will have a substantial adverse effect on U.S. scientific, technical, biomedical, or national security interests." This report is the product of that mandate. To provide context, the committee has examined the helium market and the helium industry as a whole to determine how helium users would be affected under various scenarios for selling the reserve within the act's constraints. The Federal Helium Reserve, the Bush Dome reservoir, and the Cliffside facility are mentioned throughout this report. It is important to recognize that they are distinct entities. The Federal Helium Reserve is federally owned crude helium gas that currently resides in the Bush Dome reservoir. The Cliffside facility includes the storage facility on the Bush Dome reservoir and the associated buildings pipeline.