Privatization

Privatization or privatisation is the process of transferring ownership of a business, enterprise, agency, public service, or public property from the public sector to the private sector

Quotes

• The ruthless sell-off of Britain's National Health Service during Covid by the Boris Johnson govt is a crime against humanity.
  • Twitter (9 July 2020)

• There is no justice in following unjust laws. It’s time to come into the light and, in the grand tradition of civil disobedience, declare our opposition to this private theft of public culture.

We need to take information, wherever it is stored, make our copies and share them with the world. We need to take stuff that's out of copyright and add it to the archive. We need to buy secret databases and put them on the Web. We need to download scientific journals and upload them to file sharing networks. We need to fight for Guerilla Open Access.

With enough of us, around the world, we’ll not just send a strong message opposing the privatization of knowledge — we’ll make it a thing of the past. Will you join us?

• Aaron Swartz, Guerilla Open Access Manifesto (July 2008).

• The law locks up the hapless felon

who steals the goose from off the common,

but lets the greater felon loose

who steals the common from the goose.

• Anonymous, "The Goose and the Commons", Tickler Magazine, February 1, 1821

See also

• Enclosure
• Primitive accumulation
• Property