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The Privatization of Everything: How the Plunder of Public Goods Transformed America and How We Can Fight Back
As people reach for social justice and better lives, they create public goods that must be kept out of the market. When private interests take over, they strip public goods of their power to lift people up, creating instead a tool to diminish democracy, further inequality, and separate us from each other.
The Privatization of Everything, by the founder of In the Public Interest, chronicles the efforts to turn our public goods into private profit centers. Ever since Ronald Reagan labeled government a dangerous threat, privatization has touched every aspect of our lives.
However, 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. A motivated lawyer fought all the way to the Supreme Court after the State of Georgia erected privatized paywalls around its legal code.
The Privatization of Everything connects the dots across a broad spectrum of issues and raises larger questions about who controls the public things we all rely on, exposing the hidden crisis of privatization that has been slowly unfolding over the last fifty years and giving us a road map for taking our country back.
The Privatization of Everything, by the founder of In the Public Interest, chronicles the efforts to turn our public goods into private profit centers. Ever since Ronald Reagan labeled government a dangerous threat, privatization has touched every aspect of our lives.
However, 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. A motivated lawyer fought all the way to the Supreme Court after the State of Georgia erected privatized paywalls around its legal code.
The Privatization of Everything connects the dots across a broad spectrum of issues and raises larger questions about who controls the public things we all rely on, exposing the hidden crisis of privatization that has been slowly unfolding over the last fifty years and giving us a road map for taking our country back.
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First published November 23, 2021
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December 1, 2021
This book covered an impressive and infuriating range of topics all directly linked together by one phenomenon: privtization.
More specifically, the seizure and exploitation of public works by private hands and the consequent spiral of wealth and power accumulation. It is a positive feedback loop with staggering human costs, and is literally killing us... and when it's not a literal matter of life or death, it is making our lives much worse.
I found this book to be a nearly perfect primer considering its length and the shear vastness of material that could be covered under this title. The authors tackle some of the most egregious and immediately dangerous instances of privatization, such as...
- The perversion of intellectual property to hold life saving drugs developed with tax dollars hostage behind exorbitant prices
- The crusades of bloated parasitic lowlifes, like the accuweather CEO Barry Myers' largely successful endeavors to cut the National Weather Service and its essential information off from the public while still reaping its tax-funded data for his own company
- The widespread fleecing of public lands, utilities, and infrastructure by corporations who take it for a fraction of its worth, squeeze all the money they can out of citizens for access to it, and then allow it to crumble after ensuring through contract that the government is unable (or extremely unlikely) to escape the sham.
While they went into more granular detail on individual topics and consistently backed their points up with salient figures, they also did a great job of laying out how all of these issues fit into the bigger picture and of tracing out how we arrived at this point.
Also note, I will throw names at the people responsible for these evils. I am not an academic and I do not care. I think they deserve all the perjoratives. However, the authors in this work are much more restrained that I am. They managed to communicate the urgency of the situation and make me grit my teeth half the time I was reading it not by using emotional language or repeating the wrongness of the situation ad nauseam (like a lot of books on social issues tend to do) but by laying out the facts and letting them evoke your rage for themselves. They also are very optimistic about our ability to reverse course, and I'm trying very hard to believe them.
The reader probably needs to go in with a basic understanding of how government is and can be structured at each level (municipal, state, federal) and of the fact that government contracting is rarely a straightforward deal, but more of a nebulous web of subcontractors and suppliers.
(I have seen this beast from the inside as an intern who might have been the entirety of a joint venture between a contractor and subcontractor in the office of a federal agency. Guess who got to do cybersecurity and other virtual trainings 3 times over?)
I'll be back to add on to this later, but in short: very important read. 5/5 stars. Read it and tell your friends about it. We need this.
Thanks to NetGalley and the authors for providing me an e-book ARC in exchange for an honest review!
More specifically, the seizure and exploitation of public works by private hands and the consequent spiral of wealth and power accumulation. It is a positive feedback loop with staggering human costs, and is literally killing us... and when it's not a literal matter of life or death, it is making our lives much worse.
I found this book to be a nearly perfect primer considering its length and the shear vastness of material that could be covered under this title. The authors tackle some of the most egregious and immediately dangerous instances of privatization, such as...
- The perversion of intellectual property to hold life saving drugs developed with tax dollars hostage behind exorbitant prices
- The crusades of bloated parasitic lowlifes, like the accuweather CEO Barry Myers' largely successful endeavors to cut the National Weather Service and its essential information off from the public while still reaping its tax-funded data for his own company
- The widespread fleecing of public lands, utilities, and infrastructure by corporations who take it for a fraction of its worth, squeeze all the money they can out of citizens for access to it, and then allow it to crumble after ensuring through contract that the government is unable (or extremely unlikely) to escape the sham.
While they went into more granular detail on individual topics and consistently backed their points up with salient figures, they also did a great job of laying out how all of these issues fit into the bigger picture and of tracing out how we arrived at this point.
Also note, I will throw names at the people responsible for these evils. I am not an academic and I do not care. I think they deserve all the perjoratives. However, the authors in this work are much more restrained that I am. They managed to communicate the urgency of the situation and make me grit my teeth half the time I was reading it not by using emotional language or repeating the wrongness of the situation ad nauseam (like a lot of books on social issues tend to do) but by laying out the facts and letting them evoke your rage for themselves. They also are very optimistic about our ability to reverse course, and I'm trying very hard to believe them.
The reader probably needs to go in with a basic understanding of how government is and can be structured at each level (municipal, state, federal) and of the fact that government contracting is rarely a straightforward deal, but more of a nebulous web of subcontractors and suppliers.
(I have seen this beast from the inside as an intern who might have been the entirety of a joint venture between a contractor and subcontractor in the office of a federal agency. Guess who got to do cybersecurity and other virtual trainings 3 times over?)
I'll be back to add on to this later, but in short: very important read. 5/5 stars. Read it and tell your friends about it. We need this.
Thanks to NetGalley and the authors for providing me an e-book ARC in exchange for an honest review!
January 2, 2022
A very thorough and clear account on how privatization is destroying the concept of public good. It gives very clear examples on how public goods have been decreased since the 1980s and it has become normalized. One big thing I was surprised/not surprised about was a small park with Obama’s name on it. All presidents have gotten a park since FDR but they were run by a public agency. The Obama Presidential Library and Park will be run by a Obama nonprofit organization when usually they are public and run by a special public agency. I’m surprised because he’s a Democrat who says he’s against privatization but not surprised because he chose not to use public funding for his presidential campaign. Water and infrastructure are public goods and the only way to make sure all people have access.
January 26, 2023
The title really is the message with this one: everything has been privatized and this book will name all of them! Frightening at many times, this book reminds that collaboration and community are not only moral but also consistently work better. Parts of this are infuriating and heartbreaking, it is truly astounding what vile things people will do to uphold the ideology of greed. We need to fight a lot of people, both ideologically and physically. I do wish this was a bit more hopeful, the actionable steps at the end were like “shift the way people think about life” and I was like ok that seems hard to me…. All in all I liked this and learned a lot of disturbing things
January 12, 2026
A stunning deep dive into how public private relationships work (and don't). Eye opening, and surprisingly engaging given the subject matter.
December 7, 2025
This book will madden you.
The Privatization of Everything: How the Plunder of Public Goods Transformed America and How We Can Fight Back is infuriating and excellent— it offers the explanation I've been unconsciously searching for to understand why this particular moment is so awful, and offers a compelling critique of our current political and economic era in the United States. If you're also searching for the reason why everything feels so supremely shitty right now, then please dive in.
The Privatization of Everything begins by explaining the definition of privatization ("the transfer of control over public goods into private hands") and why it is much more than simply an economic issue. Authors Donald Cohen and Allen Mikaelian explain that "privatization is primarily a political strategy" that separates us from public goods and from one another, and which has been effectively wielded by conservative and far right politicians to disenfranchise citizens, especially people of color and the non-wealthy.
The book is divided into nine parts, each of which covers a different American public good which municipalities, state and federal politicians have handed over to corporations in the name of economic "efficiency". The book spans public health, transportation and infrastructure, environmental policy, incarceration, judicial arbitration, student loans, charter schools, public parks, and the privatization of research, to name a few. Each chapter delves into the history of the respective public good and shows how American tax dollars and democratic ideals were essential to the creation of that good, which was then packaged up and sold off to private interests. In example after example, the authors show how the roads, waterways or schools are then poorly though unsurprisingly mismanaged by the companies who prioritize profit, with lifethreatening consequences to the public who are supposed to be benefit from that essential service.
Take something as natural as the weather— dozens died in a tornado after the National Weather Service was conveniently prevented by a Trump appointee from building a free app to warn citizens of storms. That same Trump appointee also happened to own a private weather forecasting company and he wanted to sell those forecasts to consumers, which would be difficult if the NWS was already providing that information publicly. He was successful in quashing the app, and then later bragged about his own company that “the tornado… went into a town that didn’t have our service and a couple of dozen people were killed.” This is just one example, but it exemplifies the political influence and financial greed behind the recent and concerted wave of privatization, and its devastating results, including real loss of human life. It is utterly repellent and systemic.
The book ends by offering a path forward. Privatization has made us individual consumers rather than citizens of a collective, where human needs are satisfied by one-off purchases instead through government services which we've paid for with our tax dollars. To fight back, we must change the narrative and once again see ourselves as part of a whole, all of us intertwined and deserving of public goods. It's no easy task, but Cohen and Mikaelian make an incredibly compelling case for change, and I finished the book feeling hopeful and reinvigorated for the work ahead. I highly recommend it!
The Privatization of Everything: How the Plunder of Public Goods Transformed America and How We Can Fight Back is infuriating and excellent— it offers the explanation I've been unconsciously searching for to understand why this particular moment is so awful, and offers a compelling critique of our current political and economic era in the United States. If you're also searching for the reason why everything feels so supremely shitty right now, then please dive in.
The Privatization of Everything begins by explaining the definition of privatization ("the transfer of control over public goods into private hands") and why it is much more than simply an economic issue. Authors Donald Cohen and Allen Mikaelian explain that "privatization is primarily a political strategy" that separates us from public goods and from one another, and which has been effectively wielded by conservative and far right politicians to disenfranchise citizens, especially people of color and the non-wealthy.
The book is divided into nine parts, each of which covers a different American public good which municipalities, state and federal politicians have handed over to corporations in the name of economic "efficiency". The book spans public health, transportation and infrastructure, environmental policy, incarceration, judicial arbitration, student loans, charter schools, public parks, and the privatization of research, to name a few. Each chapter delves into the history of the respective public good and shows how American tax dollars and democratic ideals were essential to the creation of that good, which was then packaged up and sold off to private interests. In example after example, the authors show how the roads, waterways or schools are then poorly though unsurprisingly mismanaged by the companies who prioritize profit, with lifethreatening consequences to the public who are supposed to be benefit from that essential service.
Take something as natural as the weather— dozens died in a tornado after the National Weather Service was conveniently prevented by a Trump appointee from building a free app to warn citizens of storms. That same Trump appointee also happened to own a private weather forecasting company and he wanted to sell those forecasts to consumers, which would be difficult if the NWS was already providing that information publicly. He was successful in quashing the app, and then later bragged about his own company that “the tornado… went into a town that didn’t have our service and a couple of dozen people were killed.” This is just one example, but it exemplifies the political influence and financial greed behind the recent and concerted wave of privatization, and its devastating results, including real loss of human life. It is utterly repellent and systemic.
The book ends by offering a path forward. Privatization has made us individual consumers rather than citizens of a collective, where human needs are satisfied by one-off purchases instead through government services which we've paid for with our tax dollars. To fight back, we must change the narrative and once again see ourselves as part of a whole, all of us intertwined and deserving of public goods. It's no easy task, but Cohen and Mikaelian make an incredibly compelling case for change, and I finished the book feeling hopeful and reinvigorated for the work ahead. I highly recommend it!
July 3, 2025
Absolutely everyone needs to go read this IMMEDIATELY. It is soooo relevant (especially in regards to what is currently happening in America and that ugly ass bill that republicans are trying to pass currently.)
I literally took notes while reading this and I have 30 paragraph-long bullet points with information from this book. This is such a good, comprehensive resource on this subject.
Public goods are public for a reason. We invest in certain things because we all benefit from them, even if we don’t personally use them. We invest in education and libraries because it is beneficial to everyone to live in an educated society. We invest in healthcare because it is beneficial to everyone to live in a society with less sickness. We invest in roads and public transit because it is beneficial to everyone to make it easy for people to travel around places.
Also, in most cases of privatization of public goods, the free market is a myth. It is not a free market to privatize a road, charge a toll, and then include in the government contract that the government or other entities cannot fix any roads in alternative routes. It is not the free market for drug companies to charge consumers exorbitant amounts of money for life-saving money when almost every drug in America is created through tax-payer funded research.
There is also this myth that taxing the wealthy to fund public goods is bad because they will leave and go elsewhere and they are “job creators.” Ok then, where are the jobs? They don’t pay taxes now, and yet, they aren’t creating jobs and investing in their companies. Instead, they are giving their executives MASSIVE bonuses.
Also, privatizing certain industries takes the power from the people (through democracy) and gives it to the hands of a couple powerful people. This is the opposite of freedom. Additionally, these companies don’t have to follow the same rules that government agencies would have, and do not have to give the same level of transparency.
Lastly, I want to talk about what is arguably the most relevant part of this book. We didn’t always incarcerate undocumented immigrants. Why would we? It’s so much more expensive than just deporting people. It didn’t start until private prisons started popping up. Look at the people investing in these detention centers for migrants. Look at who donated to the political campaigns of Trump and other republicans. They are profiting off of the suffering of vulnerable people and they are making taxpayers pay for it.
Anyway, this should absolutely be required reading. Everybody should read it. It lays the case out expertly and is such a good primary source. It’s also important to remember that public goods are extremely popular and we have the power to protect them. There are way more of us than there are of them.
I literally took notes while reading this and I have 30 paragraph-long bullet points with information from this book. This is such a good, comprehensive resource on this subject.
Public goods are public for a reason. We invest in certain things because we all benefit from them, even if we don’t personally use them. We invest in education and libraries because it is beneficial to everyone to live in an educated society. We invest in healthcare because it is beneficial to everyone to live in a society with less sickness. We invest in roads and public transit because it is beneficial to everyone to make it easy for people to travel around places.
Also, in most cases of privatization of public goods, the free market is a myth. It is not a free market to privatize a road, charge a toll, and then include in the government contract that the government or other entities cannot fix any roads in alternative routes. It is not the free market for drug companies to charge consumers exorbitant amounts of money for life-saving money when almost every drug in America is created through tax-payer funded research.
There is also this myth that taxing the wealthy to fund public goods is bad because they will leave and go elsewhere and they are “job creators.” Ok then, where are the jobs? They don’t pay taxes now, and yet, they aren’t creating jobs and investing in their companies. Instead, they are giving their executives MASSIVE bonuses.
Also, privatizing certain industries takes the power from the people (through democracy) and gives it to the hands of a couple powerful people. This is the opposite of freedom. Additionally, these companies don’t have to follow the same rules that government agencies would have, and do not have to give the same level of transparency.
Lastly, I want to talk about what is arguably the most relevant part of this book. We didn’t always incarcerate undocumented immigrants. Why would we? It’s so much more expensive than just deporting people. It didn’t start until private prisons started popping up. Look at the people investing in these detention centers for migrants. Look at who donated to the political campaigns of Trump and other republicans. They are profiting off of the suffering of vulnerable people and they are making taxpayers pay for it.
Anyway, this should absolutely be required reading. Everybody should read it. It lays the case out expertly and is such a good primary source. It’s also important to remember that public goods are extremely popular and we have the power to protect them. There are way more of us than there are of them.
January 23, 2025
Ok I rated it 5 stars, only because I think every American should understand the basic concepts explored in this book. Generally as a book, it's a bit dry and the material was so infuriating that it was a bit more of a "have to read tonight" than a "yay time to get back to the book." It is one of those books that I will continue to think about for years after. It has already changed how I perceive the world, and my thoughts on how i want to operate within it.
If you're into heavily researched nonfiction, I hope you pick it up. If not perhaps you should look up a TED talk by the author because the information does pertain to you.
If you're into heavily researched nonfiction, I hope you pick it up. If not perhaps you should look up a TED talk by the author because the information does pertain to you.
June 14, 2022
Nice examples that question the overall benefit of privatization of public goods. However, the final part, which should have been punchier as to how to fight privatization felt weak. Wish there had been more concrete next steps.
February 20, 2024
Read it if you want to be mad
January 15, 2026
3.5 stars! There was lots of good content and i learned a lot from this book. Privatization is very frustrating. Lower rating because I didn’t think it was very engaging and I actually think I wish it was a little more impartial? Even though I have very similar views to the authors? Idk haha
February 19, 2022
An excellent look at what rampant privitization and Wall Street corruption have cost regular U.S. citizens as they destroy public goods and deliver poor (or no) service at higher cost. Ample examples from water to public health, to education, and drug costs. Disheartening and overwhelming, but I admire the author’s attempts to reassure that this could all be corrected if the electorate would take action and work together for their common good.
May 19, 2022
3.5 stars. Compelling arguments for maintenance of public goods by the public as we tend to lose out when services are privatized. With that said, the arguments were very one-sided, and based on stories of privatization’s failings in specific circumstances. That bias should be obvious from the subtitle, though.
February 19, 2025
This book, first of all, was like trying to drink from a waterfall. At times it kind of felt impossible to really take in ALL of the information.
That said, one of this book’s best qualities is that it is thorough. There are real life examples galore of how privatization affects our communities, as well as our democracy. The points are extremely well made. Particularly impactful for me was the statement that private businesses are not in the business of helping people, they are in the business of making money. This was illustrated time and time again by the examples given (the section on the weather service had my jaw on the FLOOR), and it’s an especially important point given the current state of the world.
I also loved the recurring theme of this idea that we are primarily citizens, not consumers, and we should make our voices heard to ensure that we are seen as citizens, not as commodities.
Private industry certainly has its place, but there are plenty of spaces that should remain public. Overall, this is a little dense, but an important read, and a very compelling point of view.
That said, one of this book’s best qualities is that it is thorough. There are real life examples galore of how privatization affects our communities, as well as our democracy. The points are extremely well made. Particularly impactful for me was the statement that private businesses are not in the business of helping people, they are in the business of making money. This was illustrated time and time again by the examples given (the section on the weather service had my jaw on the FLOOR), and it’s an especially important point given the current state of the world.
I also loved the recurring theme of this idea that we are primarily citizens, not consumers, and we should make our voices heard to ensure that we are seen as citizens, not as commodities.
Private industry certainly has its place, but there are plenty of spaces that should remain public. Overall, this is a little dense, but an important read, and a very compelling point of view.
December 14, 2025
Five stars for its importance and thoroughness.
What this book points out so completely is the absurdity of the attacks on public assets in the name of the free market. We (the public) virtually never get a better deal when public works and assets are privatized. We always pay in terms of access, loss of transparency, accountability, loss of control, decline in quality, and many other factors that affect our welfare within our community. We nearly always pay more in terms of money also, because these private entities are driven only by their profit margin. The overall net public good does not enter into the equation at all.
A very good book. But like a lot of very good books, it will only be read by members of the choir to whom it is preaching. It would be nice if the many MAGA-heads out there would even consider the possibility that their free market religion that they are so beholden to just might have flaws. Then they might possibly consider reading a book like this.
But that ain't gonna happen.
What this book points out so completely is the absurdity of the attacks on public assets in the name of the free market. We (the public) virtually never get a better deal when public works and assets are privatized. We always pay in terms of access, loss of transparency, accountability, loss of control, decline in quality, and many other factors that affect our welfare within our community. We nearly always pay more in terms of money also, because these private entities are driven only by their profit margin. The overall net public good does not enter into the equation at all.
A very good book. But like a lot of very good books, it will only be read by members of the choir to whom it is preaching. It would be nice if the many MAGA-heads out there would even consider the possibility that their free market religion that they are so beholden to just might have flaws. Then they might possibly consider reading a book like this.
But that ain't gonna happen.
March 27, 2025
Accessible and thorough, this book is a must-read for our current time to help us all understand how we got here. There are, of course, a myriad of reasons and explanations for our current political and economic circumstances, but understanding how we’ve become desensitized to the shifting of our identities away from “citizens” who are owed certain goods and services in accessible and affordable ways to “consumers” who are at the mercy of the supposedly all-knowing market is imperative. It does not have to be this way and we do not have to settle for it. Understanding *how* and *why* privatization happens, and understanding that there is very little that private enterprise isn’t trying to take over and make money off of, is key to our ability to hold government officials accountable. Highly recommend.
July 27, 2025
Consider me recruited!
This is perhaps the most important book I've listened to (audiobook) to understand the U.S. free-market economy and how public goods should work. I've always had a hard time grasping how our institutions function, but I don't blame myself for not understanding such a complex subject. Our public system has had centuries to mutate into the heartless, for-profit, transactional state that we find ourselves in today.
This book is a call to action, to get radicalized, and to see the vultures who prey on our tax money for their own profit for what they really are. It calls into question whether we still stand for the values that our nation was founded upon and still claim to represent. Are we just going to be door mats and let the rich, the greedy, the ruthless walk all over us? We are not just consumers and sources of labor. We are human beings and it is our right to decide how we want our society to look like.
That means holding decision-makers accountable, and not being beholden to corporate contracts when it was public money that funded them to begin with. At the end of the day, we are for the people, by the people.
This is perhaps the most important book I've listened to (audiobook) to understand the U.S. free-market economy and how public goods should work. I've always had a hard time grasping how our institutions function, but I don't blame myself for not understanding such a complex subject. Our public system has had centuries to mutate into the heartless, for-profit, transactional state that we find ourselves in today.
This book is a call to action, to get radicalized, and to see the vultures who prey on our tax money for their own profit for what they really are. It calls into question whether we still stand for the values that our nation was founded upon and still claim to represent. Are we just going to be door mats and let the rich, the greedy, the ruthless walk all over us? We are not just consumers and sources of labor. We are human beings and it is our right to decide how we want our society to look like.
That means holding decision-makers accountable, and not being beholden to corporate contracts when it was public money that funded them to begin with. At the end of the day, we are for the people, by the people.
October 22, 2025
A very well-researched book.
This book opened my eyes. It not only put into words what I’ve experienced and witnessed in the UK, but also examined, in microscopic detail, real case studies showing how privatization is a catalyst to growing inequality across multiple layers of society in the US.
What we once considered public goods is slowly disappearing. And this erosion is breaking down the connections that hold us together. We need change. We need investment that serves the public interest, not centralized power driven by self-interest.
“We are more interdependent than ever, and our choices affect others. That makes us responsible to others, just as they are to us.”
This book opened my eyes. It not only put into words what I’ve experienced and witnessed in the UK, but also examined, in microscopic detail, real case studies showing how privatization is a catalyst to growing inequality across multiple layers of society in the US.
What we once considered public goods is slowly disappearing. And this erosion is breaking down the connections that hold us together. We need change. We need investment that serves the public interest, not centralized power driven by self-interest.
“We are more interdependent than ever, and our choices affect others. That makes us responsible to others, just as they are to us.”
December 6, 2025
Very good and useful deep dive into the many public goods that have become privatized in many sectors/locations/levels of government, as well as history and context for why it came to be this way. Extra worth reading for people born in the 80s and after, as privatization has been increasingly and purposefully normalized during our lifetimes. Four stars because the book gets a bit repetitive—the idea more than gets across the first half and it’s just the same distressing story in different sectors throughout the second half. Still, it’s worth reading through the whole thing to get a sense of the scope of the issue.
January 11, 2026
There wasn’t anything wrong with this book but there also wasn’t anything I found groundbreaking. Some examples it brings up I was unaware of and will serve as good pieces of information when explaining this to someone unaware of the issues with privatization today.
However I found it repeated the same ideas a lot, which I understand is to persuade and hammer these points home for readers not already on board with public goods and public funding. But I felt the book dragged on for a little too long at some points.
The final section is well written and made me feel slightly hopeful for the future, while the rest of the book was very doom and gloom, even when it tried to be positive.
However I found it repeated the same ideas a lot, which I understand is to persuade and hammer these points home for readers not already on board with public goods and public funding. But I felt the book dragged on for a little too long at some points.
The final section is well written and made me feel slightly hopeful for the future, while the rest of the book was very doom and gloom, even when it tried to be positive.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 4, 2025
A must read but you'll have to engage in a lot of calming practices as the book will make your blood boil. Although examples can be repetitive it serves the purpose of showing how pervasive the problem is and how privatization does not increase the efficiency or effectiveness of public services. Public services are for the public good and they are funded by the public. Citizens have a say in these services. I appreciated the call out of the transformation of citizens into consumers by the privatization of everything. It illuminates how pervasive the idea of the private sector "solving" or "fixing" services has become in our daily lives.
February 3, 2025
A devastating analysis of the parasitic corporations hellbent on wringing every last cent from the public. I am convinced that every so-called "good" wrought by capitalism can be found to exist only as a result of the contribution of the public.
June 19, 2025
I adored this book. If more people were aware of these happenings I think we’d think way differently about the world we live in and how we approach it. Ultimately, I think every voter in America should read this and then use the learnings to evaluate our politicians, we’d be in a better place
November 5, 2025
Must read this book is a web about why our current government no longer serves the public
December 1, 2025
This should be a required reading for the entire country
May 20, 2024
A rare 5 stars from me, which means I recommend it to readers and non-readers alike. This is a •must read•
October 27, 2024
Engaging and easy to digest thesis on privatization in America. Made me rethink the private public partnerships that are extolled as the best way to get things done in the public sector.
July 25, 2022
This accessible book has ample examples and evidence showing that our country has essentially abandoned the idea that governments should work for the common good in favor of looking to the free market and privatization to run all sorts of services that could be done better and cheaper by a well-run public sector. The numerous examples of the privatization show how the profit motive leads to worse services and resources for citizens. Many people in our country have bought the propaganda that the profit-motive and the private sector always produce superior results, but this book knocks that idea down completely. This book is good for building awareness of the scope of the problem.
July 23, 2022
An important recount on how privatization impacts public goods in America. An eye-opening read on how much of American innovations are dependent on public research, knowledge and funding. This book investigates what considerations are necessary for what should be deemed a public good and examine the ways in which private companies exploit or manipulate industries (from education, medicine, weather, infrastructure, water, basic electricity etc.) for profit. A must read.
July 15, 2022
An incisive and thorough examination of the greed behind privatization and the devastation it produces, as well as a roadmap for redefining public goods and transforming society according to shared values and priorities, not mortgaging our futures to profit-driven corporations.
September 15, 2024
If you live in Chicago, this is your history book. It was an overall NO to me. I barely got past a complete page, would just jump some boring/over explaining passages until my attention would get caught up again. I do have to recognize that it does contains pretty recent analysis such as Expedia’s during Trumps presidency. Yet, it felt like this book talked a lot about so many things but about nothing at the same time.
Maybe in the future I’ll read this with cleared eyes and different perspectives and might agree with the high reviews that I’ve seen around toward this book.
Maybe in the future I’ll read this with cleared eyes and different perspectives and might agree with the high reviews that I’ve seen around toward this book.
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