Schooling in the Ownership Society: Privatization has become the standard conservative response

Schooling in the Ownership Society: Privatization has become the standard conservative response:

Privatization has become the standard conservative response

Privatization guru Milton Friedman

Donald Cohen at TPM gives us a good history of privatization and the current attack on public space and public decision making.

Today, after 50 years of attack on government, privatization is a standard conservative response to tight public budgets, a key pillar of attacks on government, and a lucrative market opportunity for domestic and global corporations. Large corporations operate virtually every type of public service including prisons, welfare systems, infrastructure, water and sewer, trash, and schools. For example:

In 1988 AFT president Al Shanker proposed a new idea: To create charter schools where teachers could experiment and innovate and bring new ideas to the nation’s public schools. Today, nearly 3 million children attend charters, and large corporate chains and billionaires are funding the rapid growth of privatized, publicly funded charters.

“Cities have been discovering that public services do not necessarily have to be reduced by government or paid for by taxes,” the Privatization Council’s David Seader told the Milwaukee Journal in 1986. Individuals can pay for what they use Schooling in the Ownership Society: Privatization has become the standard conservative response: