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Comment: What Happens when Public Goods are Privatized

Studies in Political Economy

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Title Comment: What Happens when Public Goods are Privatized
 
Creator Altvater, Elmar
 
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Description The topic “public goods” is of such paramount political importance today
that the scientific advisory board of the anti-globalization network ATTAC
Germany, as well as World Economy, Ecology and Development (WEED),
and the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation have made it the subject of critical
examination.1 Social, economic, and political security depend on public
goods being readily available. In particular, the effect that the privatization
of public goods has on people’s living conditions and on social democracy
must be taken into account in order to be able to intervene politically in
the globalization process. Fundamentally, globalization means deregulation
and privatization of public facilities and goods. The extent to which the
privatization of health or educational services, old-age pensions, water and
waste disposal systems, and social or public security has become the focal
point of the debates can be seen in disputes over the General Agreement
on Trade in Services (GATS), or in the conflicts in the European Union
and within nation-states over privatization measures — from pension systems
to the water supply. This involves becoming economically literate in the sense
Pierre Bourdieu used the term: by developing collective intelligence.
 
Publisher Studies in Political Economy
 
Contributor —
 
Date 2010-05-25
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article
info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
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Format application/pdf
 
Identifier http://spe.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/spe/article/view/5985
 
Source Studies in Political Economy; Vol 74 (2004): Politics in The Age of NAFTA
1918-7033
0707-8552
 
Language eng
 
Relation http://spe.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/spe/article/view/5985/2912
 
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