


The history of privatization dates from Ancient Greece, when governments contracted out almost everything to the private sector. See also: List of privatizations Pre-20th century Metzger has written that: "Private entities provide a vast array of social services for the government administer core aspects of government programs and perform tasks that appear quintessentially governmental, such as promulgating standards or regulating third-party activities." Metzger mentions an expansion of privatization that includes health and welfare programs, public education, and prisons. Privatization may mean the government sells state-owned businesses to private interests, but it may also be discussed in the context of the privatization of services or government functions, where private entities are tasked with the implementation of government programs or the performance of government services. These entities could also be described as privatized. There are also private entities that may perform public functions. The term may also be used descriptively for something that has always been private, but could be public in other jurisdictions. It can mean moving something from the public sphere into the private sphere, but it may also be used to describe something that was always private, but heavily regulated, which becomes less regulated through a process of deregulation. The word privatization may mean different things depending on the context in which it is used. She was drawing on the work of the pro-privatization MP, David Howell, who was himself drawing on the Austrian-American management expert Peter Drucker’s 1969 book, The Age of Discontinuity. The word became common in the late 1970s and early 1980s as part of Margaret Thatcher’s economic policies. The term reprivatization, again translated directly from German ( Reprivatisierung), was used frequently in the mid-1930s as the Economist reported on Nazi Germany’s sale of nationalized banks back to public shareholders following the 1931 economic crisis.

Ultimately, the word came to German through French from the Latin privatus. In German, the word Privatisierung has been used since at least the 19th-century. The term ‘ privatizing’ first appeared in English, with quotation marks, in the New York Times, in April 1923, in a translation of a German speech referring to the potential for German state railroads to be bought by American companies. 6.1 Contrasting cases in Eastern Europe: Romania and East Germany.Before and after this process the company is privately owned, but after the buyout its shares are withdrawn from being traded at a public stock exchange. Separately, privatization can refer to the purchase of all outstanding shares of a publicly-traded company by private equity investors, which is more often called "going private". This type of privatization can include the demutualization of a mutual organization, cooperative, or public-private partnership in order to form a joint-stock company. Īnother definition is that privatization is the sale of a state-owned enterprise or municipally owned corporation to private investors in this case shares may be traded in the public market for the first time, or for the first time since an enterprise's previous nationalization. Some examples include revenue collection, law enforcement, water supply, and prison management. Government functions and services may also be privatised (which may also be known as "franchising" or "out-sourcing") in this case, private entities are tasked with the implementation of government programs or performance of government services that had previously been the purview of state-run agencies. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation when a heavily regulated private company or industry becomes less regulated. Privatization (also privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector.
