1 gen 1991 anni - Does Privatization Serve the Public Interest? by John B. Goodman and Gary W. Loveman

Descrizione:

"Privatization involves the displacement of one set of managers entrusted by the shareholders—the citizens—with another set of managers who may answer to a very different set of shareholders."

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For decades prior to the 1980s, governments around the world increased the scope and magnitude of their activities, taking on a variety of tasks that the private sector previously had performed. In the United States, the federal government built highways and dams, conducted research, increased its regulatory authority across an expanding horizon of activities, and gave money to state and local governments to support functions ranging from education to road building. In Western Europe and Latin America, governments nationalized companies, whole industries, banks, and health care systems, and in Eastern Europe, communist regimes strove to eliminate the private sector altogether.

Then in the 1980s, the tide of public sector expansion began to turn in many parts of the world. In the United States, the Reagan administration issued new marching orders: “Don’t just stand there, undo something.” A central tenet of the “undoing” has been the privatization of government assets and services.

According to privatization’s supporters, this shift from public to private management is so profound that it will produce a panoply of significant improvements: boosting the efficiency and quality of remaining government activities, reducing taxes, and shrinking the size of government. In the functions that are privatized, they argue, the profit-seeking behavior of new, private sector managers will undoubtedly lead to cost cutting and greater attention to customer satisfaction...

This growth of privatization has not, of course, gone uncontested. Critics of widespread privatization contend that private ownership does not necessarily translate into improved efficiency. More important, they argue, private sector managers may adopt practices that make essential services unaffordable or unavailable to large segments of the population. A profit-seeking operation may not, for example, choose to provide health care to the indigent or extend education to poor or learning-disabled children. Efforts to make such activities profitable would quite likely mean the reintroduction of government intervention—after the fact.

Overriding the privatization debate has been a disagreement over the proper role of government in a capitalist economy. Proponents view government as an unnecessary and costly drag on an otherwise efficient system; critics view government as a crucial player in a system in which efficiency can be only one of many goals.

There is a third perspective: the issue is not simply whether ownership is private or public. Rather, the key question is under what conditions will managers be more likely to act in the public’s interest.... Privatization involves the displacement of one set of managers entrusted by the shareholders—the citizens—with another set of managers who may answer to a very different set of shareholders.

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