Why privatizing public goods is bad for democracy (with Donald Cohen)

Pitchfork Economics with Nick Hanauer

Even in the middle of a pandemic, trickle-down politicians still love to claim that the free market is the best way to resolve human problems and that the government can't be trusted to serve the public good. But when we privatize public health, utilities, and other shared necessities, we hand over control of those public goods—the things that we all need and that we need everyone to have— to for-profit entities that don’t answer to the public. Donald Cohen, an expert on privatization, shares examples and talks about the consequences of privatization in America.

Donald Cohen is the founder and executive director of In The Public Interest, a national resource and policy center on privatization and responsible contracting. He's also co-author of the new book The Privatization of Everything: How the Plunder of Public Goods Transformed America and How We Can Fight Back.

Twitter: @donaldrcohen12

The Privatization of Everything: https://bookshop.org/books/the-privatization-of-everything-how-the-plunder-of-public-goods-transformed-america-and-how-we-can-fight-back/9781620976531

Why Privatization is Worse Than You Know: https://publicseminar.org/2022/01/why-privatization-is-worse-than-you-know/

Opinion: The pandemic proved that privatization can’t provide enough public goods—like vaccines, education, justice, and a sustainable planet: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-pandemic-proved-that-privatization-cant-provide-enough-public-goodslike-vaccines-education-justice-and-a-sustainable-planet-11640027547

The Privatization of Everything: How the Plunder of Public Goods Transformed America and How We Can Fight Back: https://nextbigideaclub.com/magazine/privatization-everything-plunder-public-goods-transformed-america-can-fight-back-bookbite/31594/

A Conversation With Donald Cohen, Author of ‘The Privatization of Everything’: https://capitalandmain.com/a-conversation-with-donald-cohen-author-of-the-privatization-of-everything

Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com

Twitter: @PitchforkEcon

Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics

Nick’s Twitter: @NickHanauer