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Privatization Quotes

“Hawkins' mission was to instill Euro-American values and practices in Indigenous peoples - including the profit motive, privatization of property, debt, accumulation of wealthy by a few, and slavery - allowing settlers to gain the land and assimilate the Muskogees.”

WealthProfitExploitationUnited States Of AmericaWealth CreationNative AmericansPrivatizationCaptalismProfits Before PeopleMuskogee
Book:An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States
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“Something is profoundly wrong with the way we live today. For thirty years we have made a virtue out of the pursuit of material self-interest: indeed, this very pursuit now constitutes whatever remains of our sense of collective purpose. We know what things cost but have no idea what they are worth. We no longer ask of a judicial ruling or a legislative act: Is it good? Is it fair? Is it just? Is it right? Will it help bring about a better society or a better world? Those used to be the political questions, even if they invited no easy answers. We must learn once again to pose them. The materialistic and selfish quality of contemporary life is not inherent in the human condition. Much of what appears "natural" today dates from the 1980s: the obsession with wealth creation, the cult of privatization and the private sector, the growing disparities of rich and poor. And above all, the rhetoric that accompanies these: uncritical admiration for unfettered markets, disdain for the public sector, the delusion of endless growth. We cannot go on living like this. The little crash of 2008 was a reminder that unregulated capitalism is its own worst enemy: sooner or later it must fall prey to its own excesses and turn again to the state for rescue. But if we do no more than pick up the pieces and carry on as before, we can look forward to greater upheavals in years to come.”

SocietyGreedMaterialismPrivatizationSocial Democracy2008 Financial CrisisTony Judt
Book:Ill Fares the Land
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“The main substantive achievement of neoliberalization, however, has been to redistribute, rather than to generate, wealth and income. …[T]his was achieved under the rubric of ‘accumulation by dispossession’. By this I mean the continuation and proliferation of accumulation practices which Marx had treated of as ‘primitive’ or ‘original’ during the rise of capitalism. These include the commodification and privatization of land and the forceful expulsion of peasant populations (compare the cases, described above, of Mexico and of China, where 70 million peasants are thought to have been displaced in recent times); conversion of various forms of property rights (common, collective, state, etc.) into exclusive private property rights (most spectacularly represented by China); suppression of rights to the commons; commodification of labour power and the suppression of alternative (indigenous) forms of production and consumption; colonial, neocolonial, and imperial processes of appropriation of assets (including natural resources); monetization of exchange and taxation, particularly of land; the slave trade (which continues particularly in the sex industry); and usury, the national debt and, most devastating of all, the use of the credit system as a radical means of accumulation by dispossession.”

CapitalismNeoliberalismHarveyPrivatizationCommodificationCapital Accumulation
Book:A Brief History of Neoliberalism
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“The Union is what needs defending this year. Government of Enron and by Halliburton and for the Southern Baptists is not the same as what Lincoln spoke of. This gang of Republicans has humbugged us to death on terrorism and tax cuts for the comfy and school prayer and flag burning and claimed the right to know what books we read and to dump their sewage upstream from the rest of us and clear-cut the forests and gut the IRS and promote the corporate takeover of the public airwaves and to hell with anybody who opposes them.”

CapitalismTax CutsRepublicansConservativesPrivatizationFlag BurningSchool Prayer
Book:Homegrown Democrat: A Few Plain Thoughts from the Heart of America
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“That the Open Society cannot exist without extensive individual property rights that clearly identify endowments and freedom to employ them does not imply that all resources, much less all decision-making, is to be privatized. Whether privatization is the best way to make resource decisions depends on the nature of the resources and the moral norms of a population. Consequently, it is mistake to claim that the Open Society requires 'full liberal ownership rights' over the maximally large range of resources. This merits emphasis: that robust individual property rights are required for the Open Society does not entail that expanding the sphere of private property is always friendly to the Open Society.”

Private PropertyPrivatization
Book:The Open Society and Its Complexities
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“Golden sees parental uninterest in collective solutions as part of a larger “decline in the social contract”… "As a scholar, I'm very disturbed that we have more [media] articles about toxins in the home than the fact that we don’t have universal prenatal care, she says. “We’ve moved from collective concern about infant and child welfare into this very privatized focus on “my child” and this intensive child-rearing.”

LibertarianNarcissismPrivatizationSocial WithdrawalHyperindividualism
Book:Homeward Bound: Why Women Are Embracing the New Domesticity
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“It defies reason to believe that Martin Luther King, Jr. would march arm in arm with Wall Street hedge fund managers and members of ALEC to lead a struggle for the privatization of public education, the crippling of unions, and the establishment of for-profit schools.”

PrivatizationDr Martin Luther KingDr Martin Luther King JrAnti UnionFor Profit Schools
Book:Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America's Public Schools
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“When crises hit the South, the masters of the international economy turn to the IMF solution. The costs are transferred to the public, which had nothing to do with the risky choices but is now compelled to pay the costs: the poor countries are instructed to raise interest rates, slow the economy, pay their debts (to the rich), privatize (so that the Western corporations can buy their assets), and suffer. The instructions for the rich are virtually the opposite: lower interest rates, stimulate the economy, forget about debts, consume, have the government take over (but don’t “nationalize”—the takeover is a temporary measure to hand it back to the owners in better shape). And the public has almost no voice in determining these outcomes, any more than poor peasants have a voice in being subjected to cruel structural adjustment programs.”

EconomicsPrivatizationFree Market CapitalismImfFree MarketsFree Market IdeologyPredatory CapitalismFree Market Economics
Book:Hopes and Prospects
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“Today, private for-profit universities are common, as are private prisons, law enforcement, tax collection, and military forces. The corporate encroachment into traditional governmental functions even extends into areas of foreign affairs, foreign aid, and national defense.”

GovernmentBusinessPrivate SectorPublicPrivatization
Book:The Capitalist and the Activist: Corporate Social Activism and the New Business of Change
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“Public intervention into private businesses during crises blurs and changes the traditional boundaries between the private spheres of business and the public sphere of government. These public actions during crisis alter norms and social expectations about government intervention in business.”

CapitalismInterventionPrivate SectorPublicGovernment RegulationPrivatization
Book:The Capitalist and the Activist: Corporate Social Activism and the New Business of Change
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“los Estados capitalistas occidentales siguen un modelo político que consiste en el desplazamiento de todas las batallas por la igualdad de oportunidades al ámbito privado: las mujeres y los hombres jóvenes deben resolver juntos cómo conciliar la vida familiar y la profesional para ambos […] Los jóvenes licenciados tienen que tratar de aceptar que el mercado laboral no los está esperando con los brazos abiertos, precisamente. Los jóvenes de origen turco o árabe deben demostrar a la sociedad su voluntad de participación para que dejen de discriminarlos.”

WorkRacismDiscriminationPrivatizationDiscriminación
Book:Wir Alphamädchen: Warum Feminismus das Leben schöner macht
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“What followed was the largest and most rapid privatisation ever seen in any country in the world (except perhaps in the Soviet Union under Yeltsin). Never in the history of civilisation has a state's total assets and infrastructure been disposed of so rapidly and in such a criminal fashion. Its machinations make Al Capone look like a paragon of capitalist virtue.”

PrivatizationDdrGdrExpropriationGerman ReunificationGerman Democratic RepublicTreuhand
Book:Stasi State or Socialist Paradise?: The German Democratic Republic and What Became of It
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“Indeed the three policy pillars of the neoliberal age-privatization of the public sphere, deregulation of the corporate sector, and the lowering of income and corporate taxes, paid for with cuts to public spending-are each incompatible with many of the actions we must take to bring our emissions to safe levels.”

AgeActionThreeLevelsCuttingPolicySafeTaxesPaidSpendingIncomeCorporateSpheresEmissionsPillarsPrivatizationDeregulation
Book:This Changes Everything: Capitalism Vs. The Climate
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“We are ready to build large underground gas storages in Turkey, to participate in the privatization of Turkey's gas-distribution networks, to use the existing and participate in the construction of new pipelines in order to supply our energy resources through Turkey to third countries, including in southern Europe”

CountryUseOrderEnergyReadyResourcesEuropeThirdsIncludingGasSouthernConstructionParticipationDistributionTurkeysStoragePipelinePrivatization
Author:Vladimir Putin
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“Vote to stand tall against terrorists ; receive Social Security privatization . Vote to strike a blow against elitism; receive a social order in which wealth is more concentrated than ever before in our lifetimes , in which workers have been stripped of power and CEOs are rewarded in a manner beyond imagining.”

Has BeensOrderSocialWealthSecurityVoteLifetimeWorkersBlowStrikesTerroristTallCeoSocial SecuritySocial OrderElitismPrivatization
Book:What's the Matter with Kansas?: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America
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“After the privatization of public education everyone will get to choose a school that reflects only your own social values. No need for the competition of ideas or critical thinking. So the curriculum will be up to the school to determine. I am certain that the growing percentage of us who have McJobs will welcome this opportunity to spend a large portion of our income on education and choose an ideology at the same time.”

ThinkingNeedsIdeasSchoolCertainValuesOpportunitySocialGrowingCompetitionDetermineCriticalIncomeWelcomeIdeologyPortionsPercentagesCritical ThinkingCurriculumPublic EducationPrivatizationSocial Values
Author:David A. Strauss
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“And a noble life is one ordered by, and oriented to, a transcendent moral code, not just one's own concept of existence and meaning and truth. ...if we want a society that reveres life, that defends the family, and that discourages delinquency and promotes decency, we cannot force a privatization of religion; we must allow the truth-claims of religious faith to be uttered aloud in the public square.”

IfsWantLife IsReligionForceReligiousExistenceMoralConceptsClaimsNobleCodeJust OneSquaresDecencyReligious FaithDiscouragingTranscendentMoral CodePrivatizationDelinquency
Author:Rick Santorum
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“A global financial cabal engineered a fraudulent housing and debt bubble [2008], illegally shifted vast amounts of capital out of the US; and used 'privatization' as a form of piracy - a pretext to move government assets to private investors at below-market prices and then shift private liabilities back to government at no cost to the private liability holder Clearly, there was a global financial coup d'etat underway.”

GovernmentMovingFormUsedAmountCostFinancialDebtAssetsInvestorsBubblesHousingPretextLiabilityPiracyCoupsPrivatizationCabal
Author:Catherine Austin Fitts
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“Another point is that ultimately, as far as the budget is concerned, of major importance is who offers more money during the bidding that must be organized as a part of the privatization process. In this sense, we cannot discriminate against any market participants, not one of them, but this is not relevant at the moment, as the Government has decided to postpone the privatization of Bashneft.”

MomentsGovernmentProcessOffersMajorsConcernedDecidedImportanceBudgetsOrganizedRelevantMore MoneyParticipantsBiddingPrivatization
Author:Vladimir Putin
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“Today, all across this country there are going to be rallies led by Democrats and others to fight against the devastating impact of repeal of the Affordable Care Act. 20 million people thrown off of health insurance, prescription drug prices raising for seniors, privatization of Medicare: devastation. And we've got to fight back against that.”

PeopleCountryCareTodayFightingMillionsDrugImpactDemocratThrownSeniorAffordablePrescriptionsMedicareDevastationPrescription DrugsPrivatizationAffordable Care Act
Author:John Lewis
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“The religious rightwingism is directly linked to globalization and to privatization. When India is talking about selling its entire power sector to foreign multinationals, when the political climate gets too hot and uncomfortable, the government will immediately start saying, should we build a Hindu temple on the site of the Babri mosque? Everyone will go baying off in that direction. It's a game.”

ShouldGovernmentPoliticalGamesReligiousTalkingIndiaHotClimateSellingUncomfortableTemplesSiteLinkedGlobalizationMosquesMultinationalsPrivatization
Author:Arundhati Roy
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“Economics and politics are so intertwined and interlinked that politics now, mainstream politics, extreme center politics, are little else but a version of concentrated economics. And this means that any alternative - alternative capitalism, left Keynesianism, intervention by the state to help the poor, rolling back the privatizations - becomes a huge issue. The entire weight of the extreme center and its media is turned against it, which in reality now is beginning to harm democracy.”

MeanLittlesStatesHelpingRealityLeftPoorDemocracyIssuesMediaHugeCapitalismEconomicsWeightExtremesHarmVersionsAlternativesMainstreamRollingInterventionIntertwinedHelp The PoorPrivatizationKeynesianism
Author:Tariq Ali
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“The conservative goal has been the Third Worldization of the United States: an increasingly underemployed, lower-wage work-force; a small but growing moneyed class that pays almost no taxes; the privatization or elimination of human services; the elimination of public education for low-income people; the easing of restrictions against child labor; the exporting of industries and jobs to low-wage, free-trade countries; the breaking of labor unions; and the elimination of occupational safety and environmental controls and regulations.”

PeopleHumansChildrenHas BeensCountryStatesJobsForceGoalUnitedPayClassUnited StatesGrowingPolicyIndustryTaxesLowsLaborThirdsSafetyTradeUnionsEnvironmentalConservativeIncomeForeign PolicyRegulationRestrictionEliminationFree TradePublic EducationLabor UnionLow IncomePrivatizationChild LaborExportingHuman ServiceUnderemployed
Author:Michael Parenti
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