The privatization of everything How the plunder of public goods transformed America and how we can fight back

Cohen, founder of the nonprofit In the Public Interest, and Mikaelian (coauthor, Medal of Honor) contend in this impassioned and well-informed cri de coeur that the decades-long trend of privatizing public services in the U.S. has been a disaster for the average citizen. Examining infrastructure, criminal justice, education, and public health, among other fields, the authors cite numerous examples of private businesses making extraordinary profits by overcharging for much-needed services and reducing or outright eliminating programs. In case after case, decisions made by local, state, and federal officials for short-term financial or political gain have not played out as predicted. For instance, Chicago's 2008 decision to grant Morgan Stanley a 75-year lease on its parking meters for $1.16 billion proved costly when the company turned a $500 million profit after only 11 years. As part of the contract, Chicago also agreed to indemnify Morgan Stanley for public works initiatives (bike lanes, housing developments, etc.) that might reduce parking revenue. In Apple Valley, Calif., the authors note, the town's private water supplier charged higher rates to residents who used less water during a drought. Cohen and Mikaelian also cite a handful of cases where voters took back control of privatized services, and offer a step-by-step guide to waging such a campaign. The result is a persuasive takedown of the idea that the private sector knows best. (Nov.)

A strong, economics-based argument for restoring the boundaries between public goods and private gains. Public goods are "nonexcludable," meaning that it is difficult to bar their use, and "nonrivalrous," meaning that my enjoyment of them does not prevent you in any way from enjoying them, too. By Cohen and Mikaelian's account, the definition needs to be formally expanded to include things that are useful to human society and should not be made into profit centers: health care, education, etc. "It does not greatly benefit me," write the authors, making the distinction clear, "if my neighbor has a huge TV. But it benefits me tremendously if she has an education, if his children are fed, and if they are vaccinated." Apart from making economic sense as social investments--an educated person generally makes more money than an uneducated one, adding to the revenue stream by way of taxes and consumption, and a healthy person doesn't unduly incur the insurance-pool cost of medicines and hospitalization--such affordances are simply the right thing to do, the authors add. This impulse comes at a time when various business interests are trying to redefine water as just another foodstuff so that they can control its distribution and price. Corporations have already taken large swaths of the education system into private hands, to say nothing of privatizing prisons, which have "never been better than the public alternative." In some municipalities, businesses are privatizing public libraries, applying metrics such as numbers of books checked out to determine the pay of library workers. In the dawning age of privatization, the 1990s, the benefits were clear to the powers that be: It "allowed politicians to take a big step back from their responsibilities." Now that even the conduct of war is largely in private hands, it's difficult to put the genie back in the bottle--but, the authors argue convincingly, it's essential that it be done. A powerful case for returning public goods to public control rather than allowing them to enrich the few. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.