In history, the general “privatization” scheme done by the government, and proposed by many ring-wing “conservatives” (including some liberals), is not a transferring of public service ownership from the government to the private sector, but a restructuring of the government department that runs the public service. It changes the operators of the government department from the public “representatives” (or in order words, bureaucrats), to investors running it for private profit. It is still a governmental public service, but now the government department is seeking profit for investors, in a State-Corporate style. Almost all “privatization” scheme in history has been done in this scheme, are we really surprised that liberals or many people for being terrified by this scheme generally understood under the term “privatization”? In fact, has there been any genuine privatization proposed by rothbard in the history of “privatization”?
Seems like many libertarians has also been silent on the issue of most “privatization” in history, which are corporatist in nature. I think libertarians have to seriously be more descriptive and clear on the issue of privatization for a popular support.
This question worries me as well, as right now in my country the state monopolist (electrical power provider) was split in a few parts, going to well-connected private interests, and the price of electricity went up. The government is all too happy to point - look, this is where your free market leads! Nevermind the man behind the curtain (you need a government’s license to sell electricity).
What really worries me is that free market libertarians main strategy to dismantle the state is by privatization, not that I am against the genuine libertarian privatization. Libertarians will gain difficult popular support by campaigning “privatization” without further details of what libertarians really mean by it. Most of the time there are no further explanation that contrasts what libertarian means by “privatization” as opposed to what most conservatives means by “privatization”. And the problem is, the word “privatization” is commonly understood as privatization scheme that is done by conservatives, the corporatist one.
I believe that it is close to impossible to implement anything like this in a country which is not completely socialistic. Be honest - do you see, e.g., Germany taking this route?
Please show me a link of any libertarian article that criticize any phony privatization scheme which is done in almost all privatization scheme in history (which is huge and really problematic), especially the ones done from neoliberal Reaganomics and Thatcherism. Libertarians have been louder talking privatization rather than addressing the difference of libertarian method as opposed to all existing privatizations that are campaigned mostly by right wing “conservatives”.
I like the idea of using the word ‘marketization’ to be more clear as to what would be better. Who wants business friendly laws, when you really want market friendly laws.