giving privatization a bad name

"Privatization" gives privatization a bad name por Jacob Lyles:

In political circles "privatization" sometimes means that a service previously provided by a government agency is replaced by the services of a private contractor. Let's call this the Bush-Halliburton method of privatization .... But contracting services out to private firms is not always an improvement. The bid process is a golden opportunity for corruption.

Skeptics of the free market witness the ignoble cycle created by so-called privatization and are further soured on capitalist ideology. They reason that government agencies can't be more corrupt or inefficient than a contracting process that awards billion dollar no-bid contracts to the Vice President's former employer.

The private market contains firms that produce great products like General Electric and Google but it also contains firms like Halliburton that grow fat on political favors. Separating the two classes of Capitalists in the public mind is essential to convincing young liberals of the virtues of free markets.