Comment: What Happens when Public Goods are Privatized

Abstract

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.