Privitization is the opposite of democratization.

[K-W]

I would just like to point that out as a reminder for those of us who still know what words mean.

We used to have 100% private government, it was called a monarchy.

[w4rma]

1. Republicans = Royalists (nt)

[K-W]

2. Except now the myths of royalty have been replaced

by much more subtle and complex myths.

But in the end it all justifies the same thing. Giving power to the few at the expense of the many.

[BrotherBuzz]

38. It's not so subtle - Corporations have replaced Royalty

The Bush* plan in all things:

"Privatize the profits and Socialize the cost"

Simple.

[AP]

3. I think that's an oversimplification.

There are definitely things that are provided more effectively when they're privatized.

And there are a lot of things that are easy to monopolize, that require huge initial investments, that spread their benefits too broadly and over a long period of time, and are therefore impossible to provide through a free market.

So, to me, democracy isn't the opposite of privatization. Democracy is a system of government that is the best system for deciding what should be privatized, what shouldn't be, and what's a good degree of regualtion for the free markets.

Ask Montanans if this is how they view democracy.

[K-W]

4. Please dont redefine democracy.

You arent arguing that it is an oversimplification, you are arguing that absolute democracy is not effective.

To be a democracy you have rule by the people. If the people choose to privatize thier government, they are opting out of democracy. You dont get to keep the label democracy when you choose to stop practicing it, even if you chose it democratically.

[AP]

5. I'm saying that your dichotomy is an oversimplication.

Those aren't poles of an axis that makes sense to me.

Democracy is the opposite of fascism. It's the rule of corporations vs the rule of citizens. By privatization isn't the sin qua non of fasicsm. You can have a lot of privatization, and still have democracy, provided corporations don't tell the government what to do.

Consider this: in Joe Stiglitz's last book, he talks about how Republcans don't want to privatize the federal agency that runs airports becaue they know that if that agency were privatized they'd no longer have the rule which allows private jets to not have to pay landing fees. That's a huge subsidy that commercial ariline travellers pay to protect the profitabilty of corporations big enough to have private jets. The Repubicans know that they can use the government to lobby to protect that rule so long as the Feds control that part of airport operations. But if that part of airport management were privatized, there's no way in the world that the shareholders of that private corporation would let the corp grant such a huge, anti-competive break to the owners of non-commercial jets.

So, just using that example, I think you can see how privatization might not be the opposite of democracy, and that democracy is actually sort of backfiring.

Like I said above, privatization and democracy arent' poles on the same axis.

[K-W]

10. It isnt an oversimplification at all.

Facism is certainly not the opposite of democracy. Facism is a description of one structure of totalitarianism, which I would argue is privitization of the whole government.

The fact that one interest group wants to keep our partially privitized airline system over a more privitized system to retain profitable regulations has nothing to do with the topic of this discussion.

Privatization is placing government in the hands of small groups or individuals.

Democratization is placing government in the hands of the people.

You dont see how they are opposites?

[AP]

16. I'm sorry, but your terms are very confusing.

Could you describe examples of privatization?

What do you think the perfect Democracy would look like? Do you think all industries would be socialized in the perfect democracy?

Do you see that you can have private industry and a democracy at the same time?

When you frame the risk as privatization alone, you miss examples such as the one Stiglitz gives about airport regulation where "democracy" and public ownership and control fo an industry is used to make sure wealthy private companies get wealthier.

Privatization isn't the risk. Fascism is the risk. The difference is that in one case you have a government operating in the best interests of the people vs. one that operates in the best interest of a few huge corporations, and you don't need a fully privatized marketplace to achieve the latter.

And in fact, you probably could have a fully privatized marketplace and still have an OK democracy (so long as it had a negative income tax and a lot of credits which allowed poor people to go to private schools, get health care, etc.), but the fact is, in functioning democracy, private industries wouldn't want to own all the aparatus of government because it's undemocratic government intervention that is required to ensure profitability for private owners of, for example, the post office, the rail lines, and schools, etc.

For example, if all schools were privatized, they certainly wouldn't buy all the private testing firms shit every year, and they'd have to figure out a way to run at a profit. It's government control of the schools that creates guaranteed wealth for private companies. No private business would want all schools to be privatized. They just want taxpayer money to pay inflated prices for their services -- they want government contracts. (Like Halliburton's in Iraq.)

So, once again, the dichotomy isn't Privatization vs Democracy.

There's a lot of good privatization, and there's a lot of fascism that happens precisely because the government controls, for eg, the schools and the airports and the army.

[K-W]

25. You are confusing privitization with capitilism.

Privitization is turning the functioning of some aspect of government over to a private group or individual.

The fact that in our particular government right now more profit lies in not privitizing in certain cases has nothing to do with anything ive said.

And I am not arguing that privitization is the only problem, just that privitization carries a cost as to how democratic our society is.

[AP]

29. Your argument is very vague. It's like you have catch phrases but

you don't want to pin much meaning to them.

If you're just trying to come up with tag lines, I'll step back.

But if you want to have a discussion about the meaning behind what your'e talking about, I'm right here, and I'm willing to participate.

Yes, privatizing social security is undemocratic (for reasons that aren't directly causal, but are definitely connected). Privatizing certain aspects of the operation of the military are very undemocratic, again, mostly because they shift a lot of wealth to corporations who use that wealth to buy off politicians and get them to do more things that are bad for the people but good for profit margins.

But, privatization vs democracy is way to simplified dichotomy, and you really need to go through the full argument on each issue and you need to connect up the indirect causal steps.

You haven't reflected on the Stiglitz argument. Do you see how, in that case, privitization might actually solve some problems where democracy is failling?

Finally, the exception you state above seems to undermine your entire oversimplication of the issue. If there are cases where not privatizing parts of the government lead to more concentrated wealth, isn't worth coming up with a theory that explains what those things have in common with social security privatization, et al, so that you have something that's more useful to progressives as a framework for understanding how the world works?

[K-W]

32. There is nothing remotely vague.

Your continued mentioning of Stiglitz shows you are just completely missing the entire discussion. As it does not in any way shape or form relate to anything ive said.

Taking a portion of a public government, and putting it in the hands of a private organization is undemocratic.

This is not vague. And Im desperately trying to figure out where on earth you are getting lost.

[AP]

40. I thin the fact that your more recent posts in this thread where you

have to explain what you really meant show that your OP was very vague.

And I think that you not seeing the relevance of the point about Stiglitz reveals that you don't understand my point. However, I'm confident that the casual reader can go through my other posts in this thread and understand my point. I'm not so confident the casual reader could do the same with your posts.

[ClassicDem]

6. I am confused?????

Please provide me with an example of what you mean by "If the people choose to privatize thier government"? I have never heard of anyone trying to Privatize the White House, Congress, Senate, Local State Governments, all of which are elected through a Democratic fashion. Now I have heard of privitazation of government agencies, most of which are run by individuals who were not elected by appointed.

[AP]

8. Yeah, I was wondering the same thing.

How's K-W defining privatization?

[K-W]

12. Why would you use such a narrow definition of government?

If you dont see the difference between a part of government being run by an employee of the people and a part of government being run by an employee of a private corporation, I dont know what to tell you.

[ClassicDem]

13. Ok lets turn the tables

whats the difference if the guy who picks up my garbage, repairs my road,insures my water is working, works for the government or a private company?

[K-W]

15. Because the government is charged with serving you.

Private corporations are charged with producing profit margins.

Do you want your government serving the overall interests of the people or serving the overall interests of the owner(s) of a company?

[AP]

22. That's too vague a distinction. The service economy also exists to

serve you, but would you turn over the provsion of legal services, tax advice, the restaurant industry, auto manufacture and repair, etc., to the government too?

Where do you draw the line between the sort of things that the government is best able to provide to the public and the things the private sector is best able to provide?

[K-W]

26. LOL, no the service industry is in it for the profit too.

Sorry to burst your bubble, they serve you because you have money you want to spend on services. If there wasnt a profit to be made, they wouldnt serve you.

I do not want to discuss the relative merits of socialization on this thread if you dont mind, id like to stick to discussing privitizing what is already public.

[AP]

31. I'll ask my question again:

What do you think is the logical test to apply to deciding which things should be done in the private sector and which things should be done in the public sector.

So far, I get the impression that you think the answer to this is "tradition."

If we're doing it now, we shouldn't stop.

I find that very unsatsifying. In Montana, Democrats won statewide elections based on the logic that the state should take back control of the energy company.

You may not want to talk about the difference between socializing and privatizing industry, but I think you're copping out if you don't. The premise of your entire argument depends on you being able to state the difference.

Again: what makes a service one that the government should provide, and what sort of industry should be one the private sector provides?

[K-W]

33. You are trying to discuss non-sequitors.

All this thread was meant to do was to point out the fact that entangling non-democratic organizations into the functioning of the government is dangerous to democracy. A fact left totally out of mainstream discussions of privitization.

I wasnt trying to argue any ideological absolutes for any side, thus my reluctance to discuss the obviously related issue of socialization.

[AP]

36. That was not explicit in your OP, and it's taken you a long time

to get arround to that point. And I think it's important that the other posters in this thread have demanded that you be more rigorous in explaining what you meant.

As I said in my first post, your dichotomy was a oversimplification of a very misleading dichotomy.

You'd probably being doing your argument way more help if you expanded on what you mean in that first paragraph of this post.

[K-W]

39. I guess its entirely my fault that you didnt get my point. EOM

[AP]

45. It's not just me.

But I do think I get your argument: you're trying to come up with an incredibley reductive slogan to explain very complicated issues and you're not too concerend that it's practically useless.

No?

[K-W]

49. Slogan?

Im not trying to come up with any slogans. What on earth are you talking about?

[AP]

55. "Privitization is the opposite of democratization"

You haven't really supported this slogan with a coherent argument and it's taken you dozens of post to even begin to define your terms (and your definitions aren't even the ones that everyone else holds for those terms).

Without the argument (and especially an argument that makes any sense) it just sounds like a slogan.

There is nothing about democracy that is hostile to enterprise or to people accumulating wealth in exchange for their labor. A progressive democracy, however, should be very warry of concentrated power, regardless of the mechanism for concentrating that power (whether through public or private ownership of the activities of government). A progressive democracy recognizes that some private enterprise can have a very democratizing influence, but also that a lot of it merely serves to transfer taxpayer wealth to the wealthy. Your slogan doesn't capture any of those progressive values and actually does a little damage to progressive values because it implies a hostility to enterprise.

I think you'd be much better off coming up with an argument that explains which privatization only serves to concentrate power, and how it does that, while recognizing that the form of government you have doesn't neccessarily relate to the degree to which a government might engage in the means of production and the provision of services.

[K-W]

58. That isnt a slogan, it is a statement.

Why you think I intended it as a slogan I have no idea.

Im sorry that you dont see how replacing parts of our democratic government with non-democratic organizations makes our society less democratic.

[AP]

62. All I said that that is an over-generalization that occludes the real

problem with privatization.

It's a useless dichotomy for understanding the risks of privatization.

[ClassicDem]

24. For corporations to make money

they need to provide a decent level of service at a reasonable price, the government has no such requirements.

Example you need to ship a package that weighs 3 pounds, now you could go down to the post office wait in line forever and ship the package at a discounted price or walk into any UPS or FedEx store and ship it at a higher price but be in and out of there in minutes and recieve a better level of service.

I do not believe that all levels of government should be privatized but if a private organization is able to do the same job at a lower price with better service then yes they should be doing it.

[K-W]

28. So if a king can run our government for cheaper, would you take it?

Look, I am not advocating absolute socialism here. And I am not even arguing against privitization, just saying we shouldnt be (as our nation is now) ignoring what happens when you increase the power held privately in society relative to the power held publically.

I dont disagree that we should have private companies build military equipment for instance. That isnt the problem with the military industrial system, the problem was that it was done with little to no caution and the end result is that the private interests that we enlisted to build the equipment predictably manipulated the system and abused the power we gave them.

I am advocating responsible and limited privitization with an eye towards the balance of power in our society, that is all.

[AP]

34. We shouldn't have a monarchy for reasons that have nothing to

do with the kind of economy we have.

You can have a socialist monarchy against the will of the people, or you can have a totally-privatized monarchy against the will of the people.

Economic power in the hands of a huge middle class is NOT dangerous to democracy. Privatization of certain industries (like, for example entertainment) actually serves to distribute economic power broadly.

Say the government controlled all the TV stations and movie studios and radio stations and book publishers. The government would then decide what entertainment products were available. No doubt, they'd be shitty. But the government would basically be making decisions about who got rich from the entertainment business.

A free market in books and movies increases the chances dramatically that wealth from the entertainment business will be broadly distributed -- which is GOOD for democracy.

Now the other end of the spectrum is where some producers of content become really powerful and then lobby the government to relax monopoly restrictions, and then ask for a tax code which lightens their burden (while small competitors see their burden increased). That's when you have a problem -- and the problem at both ends is that the government plays a part in controlling who gets wealthy and who doesn't. The problem is NOT privatization of the entertainment industry.

[K-W]

42. You cant have a soclialized monarchy,

A king pretending to represent a nation owning everything is not a true socialism.

[AP]

46. A king who owned all the means of production would be socialist

monarchy. If all industry had to be carried out with the license of the monarch and you had to share a huge chunk of your profits, that could be a socialist monarchy.

A monarchy just means the priveleve of ruling is inherited. You can have any kind of economic system you wanted once you've established how executive power is passed.

[K-W]

50. So socialism is the same as totalitarianism? NT

[AP]

57. How did you get the impression that I'm making that argument?

I think I've made it pretty clear that I think you can have government which elects people, a government which selects people to rule, or a government in which the privilege to rule is inherited, and that that government can either be totally free-market, totally socialized, or some mix of government and private ownership.

And I'm not clear how this relates to your argument (but I suspect it has something to do with that confusing second paragraph of yours).

[K-W]

61. So you think all totalitarian governments are socialisms.

Because they control thier economies.

I think most socialists would disagree with you.

[AP]

63. I don't expect you to start understanding what I'm arguing this far

into the the thread.

So, I'll just say no, and I'll leave it at that.

I'll add that what I think -- which directly contradicts your characterization of what I think -- is in the post to which you responded.

[K-W]

65. Try not contradicting yourself.

Totalitarianism is when the state is an absolute authority, thus it would of course control the economy.

Thus if the only thing neccessary for socialism were complete state control of the economy, all totalitarian states would be socialisms.

So it is completely impossible for you to think that all governments that control the economy are socialist and not think that all totalitarianisms are socialist.

[AP]

68. Totaltitarianism is total control of the government.

A totalitarian gov't could decide to give monopolies to a handful of private companies in an attemt to privatize and concentrate all the wealth of the nation in the hands of a few people.

That's the direction Hitler was headed, I believe. That's what Mussolini was doing. That's why Ford liked Hitler and Mussolini so much. Ford didn't imagine that Germany and Italy would take over Ford. He imagined that they would run a government that made it very easy for Ford to make profits.

You could also have a socialist democracy. Until 1982, I believe, one of the planks of the UK Labour party was state ownership of the means of production. They didn't want to get rid of democracy. But they were telling voters that if enough of them got elected, they were going to take over all the factories in the country and make the UK a socialist haven.

Whether a country is totalitarian or democratic doesn't have a one-to-one correlation to whether they embrace public or private ownership of the means of production.

[AP]

7. I will say, however, that there is a lot in common...

...between monarchy and the concentration of wealth in the hands of the wealthy, and the privatization of guaranteed wealth and socialization of risks that we see today.

But just like in the airport regulation example above, a lot of that is done in the US through government activity (just as a lot of commercial enterprise was controled by the crown in countries which had monarchies). Republicans don't want EVERYTHING privatized and nothing socialized. They want a government that guarantees wealth for the wealthy, and they'll get it any way they can.

Granted, they do it by privatizing a lot of stuff, but the fact is, somethings should be privatized and some things shouldn't be (and the Republicans tend to want to privatize all the things that shouldn't be -- the things where you don't have much choice over whether you should buy it and are easily monopolized (like health care and energy) but they also want to use a lot of public things as vehicles to deliver wealth to private companies (like the way they want to use public schools to deliver wealth to testing companies).

The key thing isn't so much that they want privatization, it's that they want to transfer the guaranteed wealth to the wealthy, and the risks and the burdens to the poor.

I think if you see privatization alone as the big bad, you miss the true picture of what is happening.

[K-W]

14. You seem to have read alot of things that I never said.

I never argued that privitization was bad, simply that it was undemocratic. You are inferring things I do not mean. I am not making value judgements here, but the republicans sell privitization as democritization which is a major perversion of the truth.

[AP]

18. My bad for thinking undemocratic = bad

Sorry for imposing my world view that democracy is good on you.

Privatization is not absolutely bad. Privatization is bad when it's used to concentrate wealth in the hands of the wealthy (ie, to achieve fascism).

But so is public ownership and control. When public schools and the army use taxpayer money to buy testing services or food services at inflated prices from people connected to the government or when the IRS uses the tax code to shift the tax burden off wealth and on to work, all that is bad too.

The bottom line question is not whether something is provide privately or publically.

The bottom line is whether wealth is being concentrated in the hands of the wealthy or is being spread down to the people, regardelss of whether it's done through a private or public aparatus.

A lot of privatization has a very democratizing influence on the distribution of wealth. Land reform is essentially privatization. You're giving title to private individuals so that they can secure loans with their deeds and buy machinery so they can be more efficient private entities. You're using capitalism to distribute wealth to people who are working for it (and working within a private enterprise setting). To me, that's the essence of Democracy -- and it's private.

[K-W]

30. You are letting the short term bottom line dominate everything.

My point is that there are long term societal consequences to mingling your government with non-democratic organizations.

[AP]

37. Everything in your argument depends on WHICH government

activities you're talking about.

If you're talking about Social Security, you're absolutely right. If you're talking abotu the post office, I think you're right too.

But if you're talking about all the means of production in America, I think you're wrong. In fact, if you were talking about the BBC's entertainment production business, I'd say you were wrong too. I think the government controlling entertainment production in the UK has undemocratic tendencies, and that democracy would be better served if there were a competitive private marketplace for entertainment production not dominated by the BBC in the UK.

[K-W]

43. What does socializing entertainment production

have to do with the fact that moving government to the private sector limits the control the people have over thier government?

Yes, socializing entertainment would democratize it, but that alone isnt a good reason to do it, nor am I arguing that we should.

Heck, I dont think that our government is particularly democratic to begin with, so in many US cases this discussion borders on irrelevant.

[AP]

47. The government owning the means of the production of entertainment

does not democratize society.

Reread my post.

The government giving up control of what peopl read and see allows wealth from entertainment production to flow more broadly and ensures that the things that do get read and seen are reflections of what people want to read and see rather than what the government wants them to read and see.

[K-W]

52. It does if the people own the government.

And the free market does not distribute wealth broadly.

You can believe fairy tales of ideal captialism if you want. On the planet earth, the 'free' market funnels wealth to an elite few and limits our entertainment products.

[AP]

60. I give up.

We're obviously coming from totally different perspectives, and if nothing I've said so far is making light bulbs go off for you, I don't think anything else I could possibly say will.

I'm confident that there's enough in this thread for the casual reader to realize that private enterprise is not an absolute threat to democracy, and that by thinking of evil in the dichotomy of private vs public ownership, you miss the bigger picture, and that bigger picture is whether the government's policies serve to concetrate power in the hands of a few people, or spread wealth broadly to a huge class of people who work for a living, and that both private and government activity are as capable of doing one as they are the other.

And I have you to thank for helping me make those points.

[K-W]

64. Next time you want to make points that have nothing to do with mine.

start your own thread please.

[AP]

70. Next time you want to make points but not have to answer questions

don't post your opinion at DU.

[sweetheart]

59. given that the repukes want to thieve the guaranteed income streams

of the natural monopolies, it does not automatically mean that the
better mechanism is to have these natural monopolies be public, but
rather that those oligopolies need public oversight that their profit
taking does not get out of hand, and that they do not stagnate.

This critique could be levied at many us industries that have failed
to innovate and continue to suck up huge fat revenues by their monopoly
positions... from petroleum, to microsoft, to banking... and when a
cheque by modern technology should be clearing in less than a day by
electrnic fedfunds standards, we're still in the dark ages, as no
innovation kicks the asses of the colluding monopolists... and no public
regulator is kicking any ass except eliot spitzer.

THe concern it seems, is that K-W is suggesting that the agency of any
private company is profit taking for the rich, and that this agency
cannot be trusted when public agencies are involved. However there
are options in corporate governance to accomodate this. One is a
structure where the public regulator own's a golden share of any
company in the industry sector and may veto a boardroom decision.

Another is the public regulator is empowered to close any business
violating the public interests (such as how some banks have been
closed for scandals in past years).

Even another is to change the corporate governance statutes to allow
more agencies besides "shareholders" to be represented, be they
customers, employees and the taxpayers who are paying for the whole
infrastructure on which the business relies. Methinks a major
part of the problem is that the legal structures have not kept up
with the complexitiy of our society, and that a more realistic
vision of corporate governance enfranchising stakeholders is called for.

That aside, a short path is to appoint sector industry regulators
with huge legal ammunition to call monopolists to public account.

[AP]

9. Are you saying that an economy with any privatization is not a democracy?

?

And just for the sake of clarification, I'm saying that a functioning economy (regardless of the form of government) will have a mix of private and socialized industry.

I don't think a private company could ever run the post office, and I think the post office is already dangerously over-privatized. I think Amtrak would create a ton of wealth for society and for private industry if it were run much more efficiently (and probably at a loss) by the government.

But then again, I don't think the government could ever have created the wealth and innovation that a lot of private entrepreneurs have created over the decades.

The government and private enterprise should work together to create social wealth that is distributed fairly (ie, that everyone willing to work for it can realize). That's what I think, anyway.

I'm not very clear about what you think.

[K-W]

19. Im saying

that privitization takes power that was once in the hands of the people (through proxy of course) and puts it in the hands of of a private group or individuals and that rule by private groups or individuals is the opposite of democracy.

A totalitarianism is a fully privitized government. You can have a very democratic government and have privitization. That isnt the issue.

I am not arguing against a level of privitization, I am just pointing out that there is a tradeoff.

Look at the economy. The fact that so much economic power lies in private hands makes our economy extremely undemocratic. The fact that this is the model the right wing would like to use for basically everything should worry anyone who values democracy.

[liberal43110]

23. Sorry, You're Just Plain Wrong Here

Privatization has nothing to do with totalitarianism. In fact, many of the classic examples of totalitariam regimes have small private sectors with most of the economy in the public sector.

To put it simply, you're mixing a political concept with an economic concept.

[K-W]

35. Sorry but politics and economy are only independent in your head.

And id love to hear of this magical land where the government can be totalitarian and private but has a large public sector.

[AP]

41. I could be wrong, but Nazi Germany and Pinochet's Chile might

be two examples. They certainly existed to make a few big businesses very rich, but I believe they did it through controlling a lot of the rest of the economy.

By the way, what's a "private government"? Do mean a government that isnt' really elected? Or do you mean a government which, regardless of whether it's elected, serves the interests of a small class of wealthy people?

[K-W]

48. Private government

is a government that isnt controlled by the people, but by some subset of the people.

What to you defines socialism as opposed to totalitarianism? To me it is legitimate government. Thus why I dont consider dictators who control everything a socialized government.

[AP]

51. It seems like there are a lot of clues to what you're thinking in your

second paragraph.

Maybe you could take another look at it and put it into full sentences and make sure it makes sense.

[K-W]

53. Im perfectly clear on my points, it is you that isnt. EOM

[AP]

27. A lot of industry that is private was never provided by the government.

And, especially in monachical societies, government control of some industries was used to take power out of the hands of the people.

And I should point out AGAIN that the right wing doesn't want to privatize EVERYTHING. They certainly want to privatize everything they can that would make them a huge profit, but that neccessarily requires that the entities paying those private providers are still publically owned.

Again, I refer you to the Stiglitz airport example. Republicans actively do NOT want that privatized because it would cut into the profits of big corporations who lobby and control the politicians voting on that issue. They don't want to privatize all the public schools because they know that that would end the free ride they plan for companies that provide services to public schools. Also, Halliburton doesn't want to run the army, they just want the contracts the army gives out.

Railing aginst privatization misses the bigger picture that it's not privatization of everything that wealthy corporations want. It's guaranteed wealth that they want. They don't want a competitive free market with a lot of private businesses competing on price and innovation. That's too uncertain, and only rewards those willing to work the hardest.

Oh, another strategy of big business is to go back and forth between private and public ownership. For example, I'm just certain that the exit strategy for the privatization of British Rail is to run it to the ground and force the government to buy it back. That was also what happened with the American rail industry in a different context. Politicians bought up all their friends' land with government money at inflated prices, and then sold it back to their friends for a fraction of what they paid for it after the government ended up not building railroads on it.

It's the swings on which a lot of people make money -- the only rigid ideology is not privatization vs socialization; the rigid ideology is about profit vs loss.

[K-W]

54. Please tell me what isnt private

about a country where one person owns everything?

[AP]

71. If l'etat c'est moi, that it's not clear what's public and what's private.

But if the government is being used to concentrate the wealth that is created by work of the poor in the hands of a few people who are already very wealthy and aren't doing the work, it's pretty clear that WEALTH and REWARD is being privatized while the BURDENS and the RISKS are being socialized. You can do that in just about any mix of economic strategies, wether pure government ownership of everything, or private ownership of everything, or mixed ownership of everything.

[msgadget]

11. Hey, I like that!

:bounce:

[cattleman22]

17. You are mixing two different concepts.

There could be an absolute democracy and privitization of all government functions. They are not incompatible. That being said, that does not mean that privitization is necesarily a good or a bad thing.

[K-W]

21. sorry, you are just plain wrong

Privitization by definition takes control away from the public and gives it to private organizations. This is the exact opposite of democritization, which is taking control out of private hands and putting it in the hands of the public.

[AP]

44. I don't agree with these definitions at all.

Privatization is description of how industry is owned. Democracy is a way a society is governed (one person one vote).

You can have a democracy which represents the interests of a few large corporations and you can have privitization of industry in a functioning democracy which doesn't privilege corporate over individual interests.

As I've said elsewher, you've picked a dichotomy that doesn't exist on the same axis and it's practically useless in describing how society works.

Consider this:

You can have public ownership of an industry, but that ownership could still serve to make a few people rich. PDVSA, the state-owned oil company, was used to make a few people rich before Chavez came along. Now it's used to make a lot of people rich (and it's doing that by entering into a lot of deals with private companies).

Privatization can also be used to spread wealth down to the working class too. The government might own a lot of unused land, and can give title to a lot of small plots to a lot of private people. They work the land, create wealth for themeselves, increase the supply of food on the market, lower prices for everyone esle, and they help feed people and they help working people keep more money in their pocket. That's good for democracy.

[K-W]

56. "You can have a democracy which represents a few... corporations"

If you think that, you have no idea what democracy is.

[AP]

66. If a politician who is elected makes the choice not to privatize

the airport regulating agency because that would mean that a few large companies would have to start paying landing fees, that's democracy, and that's probably bad.

[AP]

67. If a politician who is elected makes the choice not to privatize

the airport regulating agency because that would mean that a few large companies would have to start paying landing fees, that's democracy, and that's probably bad.

[liberal43110]

20. You're Mixing Governing and Ownership

Democracy is a political system in which the people being governed choose their own leaders: a political system "of the people."

Privitiation refers to the ownership status of economic entities: companies, industries, or the entire economy. More specifically, privatization refers to the transferring of state-owned resources to the private sector.

The concepts are not mutually exclusive. In fact, the two concetps describe different phenomena altogether.

[K-W]

69. No, not at all.

First off democracy does not refer to representation. Democracy refers to government by the people. In its purest form this means that the people as a group govern themselves.

Representation is a way to try and structure a practical but still democratic government, as pure democracies are not feasible in large populations.

Democritization is putting something under the control of the people. Privitization is putting something under the control of private interests.

[AP]

72. And what's that "something"? Democratization is putting

_government_ under the control of the people. Fascism is putting government under the control of corporations. Monarchy is putting it under the control of a person who inherits power.

Privatization is puttting control of _industry_ under the control of private entity, rather than a public entitty.

That your definition above uses the vague term "something" as it does is a big indication that your terms are flawed.

Democracy is not putting the control of industry in the hands of the government. And privatization is not putting the control of government in the hands of private entities.

"Privatized government" is a phrase you invented in order to blur this distinction.