You probably didn’t notice it happening. It wasn’t a single event or a giant ribbon-cutting ceremony where someone handed over the keys to the world. It’s more like a slow, steady leak. You wake up, drive on a toll road managed by a Spanish conglomerate, send your kids to a charter school run by a private board, and maybe walk through a "public" park that is actually owned by a real estate developer. This is the privatization of everything, a shift that has fundamentally rewired how society functions over the last forty years.
It’s everywhere.
Honestly, the word "privatization" sounds like boring accounting homework. But when you look at the reality—private equity firms buying up local ERs or corporations owning the rights to the literal water under the ground—it gets real fast. We are moving away from a world where "public" meant something owned by everyone, and toward a model where every interaction is a transaction.
Where Did This Obsession With Privatization Actually Start?
Most people point to the 1980s. You’ve got Margaret Thatcher in the UK selling off British Telecom and Jaguar, and Ronald Reagan in the US pushing the idea that the government isn't the solution to the problem, but the problem itself. It was a vibe. The "Chicago School" of economics, led by Milton Friedman, argued that the private sector is always more efficient because it has the "profit motive."
The logic is simple: if you own a business, you’ll work harder to make it good so you don't lose money. If the government runs it, they don't care if it's slow or crappy because they’ll just get more tax money anyway.
But it didn't stop at phone companies or airlines.
By the 1990s and 2000s, this logic leaked into things nobody thought were businesses. We’re talking about prisons. We’re talking about the military. Did you know that at the height of the Iraq War, there were almost as many private contractors—basically corporate soldiers—as there were actual US troops? Companies like Blackwater (now Academi) became household names because of this.
Then came the infrastructure. In 2006, Chicago famously leased its parking meters to a group led by Morgan Stanley for 75 years. They got a one-time payment of $1.15 billion. Sounds like a lot, right? Well, the private investors made their money back in less than a decade, and now Chicago residents pay some of the highest parking rates in the country while the city gets zero of that revenue. It’s a classic example of "short-term gain, long-term pain."
The Hidden Privatization of Your Backyard
You might think your local park is public. Maybe. But look closer at "Business Improvement Districts" or BIDs. In places like New York City, Bryant Park is managed by a private nonprofit. It looks great, sure. It’s clean. But because it’s privately managed, they can kick people out or set rules that a regular city park couldn't easily do. It’s "public-ish."
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This is the privatization of everything in its most subtle form. It’s the blurring of lines.
And don't get me started on HOAs. Millions of Americans live in Homeowners Associations. These are essentially private governments. They can fine you for the color of your curtains or the height of your grass. They provide the "public" services—trash, security, road repair—within their borders. We’ve traded the town council for a private board that you can’t easily vote out in a traditional democratic sense.
The Infrastructure Gold Rush
Investors are obsessed with things called "real assets." Think bridges, tunnels, and water systems. Why? Because you have to use them. You can't just decide not to use the only bridge into town because the toll went up. It’s a "natural monopoly."
- Water: In places like Bayonne, New Jersey, the water system was leased to private firms. Rates often spike because the private company needs to satisfy its shareholders while also fixing old pipes.
- The Internet: We treat the web like a public utility, but the physical cables and the rules for how data moves are owned by a handful of massive telecoms.
- Weather Data: Even the weather isn't safe. There have been repeated pushes to restrict the National Weather Service from providing free forecasts so that private companies like AccuWeather can sell that data back to you.
Why This Actually Matters for Your Wallet
The pitch for the privatization of everything is always "efficiency." The reality is usually "cost-shifting." When a private company takes over a public service, they have to do three things: pay for the service, pay their executives millions, and provide a profit to shareholders.
Where does that extra money come from?
It comes from two places: charging the user more or paying the workers less.
Look at healthcare. In the US, private equity firms have been buying up physician practices and emergency rooms at a staggering rate. A study published in JAMA found that when private equity takes over a hospital, the costs for patients often go up, while the quality of care can become hit-or-miss because the focus shifts to "billing optimization." They aren't necessarily better at medicine; they're just better at extracting value.
It's a weird paradox. We're told privatization saves the taxpayer money. But if you're paying $20 in tolls to get to work and $500 a month in HOA fees, does it really matter if your "taxes" are lower? You're still paying. You’re just paying a corporation instead of a government.
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The Ethical "Uh-Oh" Moment
Some things just feel wrong when they’re for-profit.
Prisons are the big one. When a company gets paid per inmate, they have a financial incentive to keep people locked up. They have an incentive to lobby for "tough on crime" laws. That’s a massive conflict of interest. If your business model depends on a high "occupancy rate" of human beings in cages, something has gone sideways.
Education is another battleground. Charter schools and voucher programs are essentially the privatization of everything applied to the classroom. Proponents say it gives parents choice. Critics say it drains money from the public system that has to serve everyone, including the kids who are the most expensive to teach, like those with severe disabilities.
Is Anything Still Actually Public?
Not much.
Even the airwaves are auctioned off. The GPS you use on your phone is one of the few remaining "pure" public goods—it's a satellite network maintained by the US Air Force and given to the world for free. If GPS were invented today, there is zero chance it wouldn't be a subscription service.
We’ve even privatized space. NASA used to build the rockets. Now, they're essentially a customer of SpaceX. While Elon Musk has undeniably made rockets cheaper and more reusable, it means a private individual now controls the primary gateway to the stars. That’s a lot of power for one person to have over the "global commons."
The "Private Public" Space
Have you ever been to a "POPS"? That stands for Privately Owned Public Space.
If you go to a skyscraper in a big city, there's often a plaza or a lobby that is legally required to be open to the public in exchange for the developer getting to build a taller building. But try to hold a protest there. Try to take professional photos without a permit. Try to look "homeless" there. You’ll be asked to move along by private security very quickly. This is the privatization of everything impacting our right to simply exist in space without buying something.
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The Flip Side: Does Privatization Ever Work?
It would be dishonest to say it's all bad.
The Soviet Union tried to own everything, and that ended in bread lines and total systemic collapse. There are things the government is objectively terrible at doing. Innovation in consumer tech, for example, thrives in a private market. You wouldn't want a "Government iPhone." It would be three inches thick and run on 20-year-old software.
The problem isn't private business. The problem is when we apply market logic to things that aren't markets—like justice, basic survival, and the environment.
How to Navigate a Privatized World
You can’t opt out of the privatization of everything entirely, but you can change how you interact with it. It starts with awareness.
- Check your utilities. Who owns your water and power? If it’s a private equity firm, keep a very close eye on rate hike hearings. These are often public, but nobody shows up. Show up.
- Support true public libraries. They are one of the last places on earth where you can exist without being expected to spend money. They are a miracle of the "public" model.
- Read the fine print on "public-private partnerships." These are often marketed as "free money" for cities, but they usually involve giving away decades of future revenue for a small check today.
- Advocate for "open source" infrastructure. This applies to digital life too. Using software and platforms that aren't owned by a single mega-corp helps keep the digital commons alive.
The shift toward the privatization of everything happened because we stopped seeing ourselves as "citizens" and started seeing ourselves as "consumers." A citizen has rights and a stake in the system. A consumer just has a wallet.
The next time you pay a toll or see a park with a corporate logo on it, ask yourself: who actually owns this? And more importantly, who is it being run for? If the answer is "shareholders" rather than "people," then you know exactly where we are on the map.
The best way to push back is to demand that "public" stays public. That means voting for people who value long-term community health over short-term budget fixes. It means being willing to pay taxes for things we all use, rather than paying "fees" to a company that only cares about the bottom line. It’s not about being anti-business; it’s about knowing where the market ends and society begins.
Actionable Steps for the Skeptical Citizen
Start by auditing your local landscape. Look at your city council's agenda for the words "outsourcing" or "asset monetization." These are the buzzwords for selling off public goods.
Engage with your local school board to understand how much of the "public" budget is being diverted to private vendors. Often, the food services, the busing, and even the custodial work are all privatized, leading to lower wages for workers in your community.
Finally, protect the data. In the 21st century, our collective data—traffic patterns, health trends, shopping habits—is the new "public land." Don't let it be fenced off without a fight. Use privacy-focused tools and support legislation that treats data as a public resource rather than private property.