The Privatization of Everything

A road map for preventing the private takeover of AmericaPoliticians in Colorado gave a private company a contract to operate the Northwest Parkway and profit from its tolls. But when residents wanted to improve a local road nearby, the company pointed to contract language barring competition with the toll road, and demanded compensation. In 2008, Chicago ceded control of the city's 36,000 parking meters to private investors, committing to true up any loss caused if a bus lane, bike lane, housing development, or any other initiative reduced parking revenue, and getting fleeced of a billion dollars in the process.America first began to sell itself off to the highest bidder under Ronald Reagan, who established a President's Commission on Privatization designed to transfer everything from air traffic control to prisons into private hands. Not Up for Grabs, by the founder of In the Public Interest, chronicles these efforts to take our public goods private. But it also shows how citizens across the country are wresting back what is ours. A California city took back its water infrastructure after finding that they could do it better and cheaper as a co-op. In Atlanta, a coalition of public transit users, employees, and teachers stopped the transfer of city busses to private enterprises. In Florida, a Republican lawmaker is waging war against private prisons, making the case that the power to punish should belong to the public.Education, public health, open parks, clean water: these, and many others, should not be in private hands. Not Up for Grabs exposes the hidden crisis of privatization that has been slowly unfolding over the last fifty years and gives us a road map for taking our country back.