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The Fox in the Henhouse: How Privatization Threatens Democracy
Privatization has been on the right-wing agenda for years. Health care, schools, Social Security, public lands, the military, prisons—all are considered fair game. Through stories, analysis, impassioned argument—even song lyrics—Si Kahn and Elizabeth Minnich show that corporations are, by their very nature, unable to fulfill effectively what have traditionally been the responsibilities of government. They make a powerful case that the market is not the measure of all things, and that a vital public sector is an indispensable component of a healthy democracy.
- GenresPoliticsNonfiction
320 pages, Paperback
First published October 10, 2005
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January 2, 2019
Warning: This posting starts off as a book review and then becomes a rant of sorts.
Kitty and I started teaching in 1970. During our careers we noticed an interesting pendulum swing in school maintenance. At first most school upkeep was done by school board employees. There were plumbers, carpenters, electricians, groundskeepers, painters and others. The larger jobs were contracted out, roofing, remodeling, HVAC. Then there was a movement toward contracting more and more of the services. The BoE had fewer employees, with less insurance and fewer pensions, less vehicle maintenance, less supply procurement, etc., etc. Slowly contracted maintenance costs began to rise and many began to say, “We could save money if we did these jobs ourselves.” So the pendulum went in the other direction, back to the start. At the heart, of course, is the debate: “Which is best: in house or contracted out?
The Fox in the Henhouse: How Privatization Threatens Democracy by Si Kahn and Elizabeth Minnich was published in 2005. In many ways it is an extension of the same debate, but, unfortunately, a pendulum is no longer the appropriate metaphor. In this case it is a run-away freight train and there doesn’t seem to be any coming back. What I found most frightening is that the privatization trends described in the book aren’t being discussed, much less dealt with, and the rate of take-over seems to be rapidly expanding. It’s been thirteen years since the warning and it seems that almost no one is listening.
The book begins with a discussion about the private good vs. the public good. What are the things that can best be done by government as opposed to the things that we can best be done by private enterprise? The essence of all this has to do with who makes decisions about how these things are organized and delivered. Once services are privatized, the public has less and less to say about the cost, quality and efficiency of the services.
Promoters of unfettered capitalism say that competition will drive out the inferior and inefficient. It doesn’t work that way. Thirty years ago when the Exxon Valdez despoiled Prince William Sound, I decided to boycott Exxon. My problem was that there was no alternative oil corporation with which to do business. They are all environmentally insensitive thieves. If I don’t like a particular drug company or insurance company, I can just switch to another fairer, less predatory, more socially conscious one. So far I haven’t found one. In a world of rapacious mega-corporations protective, sweetheart legislation and the “too-big-to-fail” mentality all but eliminate real competition.
At one time there seemed to be obvious demarcations between public and private. Though some anarchical conservatives will argue against almost all government involvement in our lives, there seem to be at least a few obvious areas in which government should play a significant role: health care, the military, highways, public safety, education and social welfare.
.The administration of health insurance must make the use of a bureaucracy of administrators, agents and clerks in order to function. Someone must do the paper work. There will always be bureaucratic stupidity and snafus. The question is, who do you want the bureaucrats to be? Do you want people who work for an insurance company whose main function is to maximize profits or government employees who theoretically have the interests of the people at heart? When the government screws up, I can seek the help of elected officials. If a company screws up, I’m more likely to be told,”Too bad.” The idea of a person being in control of his/her own healthcare is a myth.
It doesn’t stop there. Not only is health insurance out of our hands, the actual administration of facilities is becoming farther removed. In the eighties the ownership and control of hospitals started to shift from public to private and then to corporate. Many small, rural hospitals have closed down entirely because profitability overruled public need. From many there is a strong movement to privatize the Veteran’s Administration.
Our nation’s defense is not immune from the corporate plundering. PMCs (Private Military Companies) and PMSCs (Private Military and Security Contractors) are everywhere. These are separate from arms and munitions manufacturers. The short list includes The Supreme Group, L3 Communications, Compass Security, Service Employees International, DynCorp and AEGIS. Never heard of them? That’s the way they like it. The Department of Defense pays out much more to civilian employees and contractors than to actual soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines. And more and more of the actual combat jobs are being turned over to corporate mercenaries.
Our highways are impacted. Because most projects are large and complex, it doesn’t make sense for states to have all the equipment and engineering capabilities to build highways. Presently highway contracts take care of all but minor repairs. In most cases there is competitive bidding with an eye to quality control. Privatization, however, lurks in the background. In some states there are proposals for privately-owned toll roads.
Public safety is another area where privatization is having an effect. In the last forty years there has been a proliferation of security companies. They offer services.to industrial complexes, shopping centers and gated communities. For the most part the effects are minimal. Insufficient training, low pay and minimal benefits seem to be endemic. The problem is not so much that the police are becoming privatized, but that they are becoming militarized and the corporations are cashing in on the sales of paramilitary gear that is of dubious value to community security. Allied to the policing question is the matter of incarcerating the people that have been convicted of crimes. The trend started in prison medical facilities. It was difficult to justify having a full medical clinic in every prison. Medical services were contracted out. From there it was easy to contract other services until entire prisons became corporate. Much of our mass incarceration problem is directly related to the lobbying efforts of corporate prisons.
The desegregation of schools led to the mushrooming of private “academies” to maintain racial separation. Now there are those who want all of us to pay for their elitist institutions through voucher programs at the expense of public school funding. They want access to government funding but want to maintain their elective admissions policies, i.e. the learning disabled and behaviorally challenged need not apply. Another privatization trend in education is online college which in many cases offers learning of questionable value. Students used to be able to borrow money from the government at low interest rates. Now the bankers and other financial middlemen have stepped in to rake off a usurious cut right from the top. Furthermore, corporate backing has a tremendous influence on the scientific research being conducted in college and university laboratories.
Right wing advocates rant against “entitlements” but neglect to consider the greatest government handouts: corporate welfare, subsidies, sweetheart, no-bid contracts, write-offs, tax breaks, and allowances. Many are clamoring to turn public assistance programs, especially Social Security, over to Wall Street and let people manage their own retirement programs. Like managing one’s own health care, managing one’s own retirement plan is a myth.
The Fox in the Henhouse is a clarion call, an urgent warning. What began as a trend is quickly becoming an avalanche. At its simplest privatization is the movement toward a more elitist society. Those best able to pay will get better services, better health, better schools, safer neighborhoods and more secure retirements. Most of this started happening because we weren’t paying attention. Now we know. It is up to us to educate one another about the dangers of privatization and begin to reestablish control of the forces of the public good.
A special bonus of The Fox in the Henhouse is that the text is liberally (pun intended) supplemented with song lyrics from Kahn who is one of America’s premier singer-songwriters. He has been a civil rights, union and community organizer for more than 50 years. In 2017 Folk Alliance International bestowed on him the Folk Alliance Spirit of Folk Award.
Kitty and I started teaching in 1970. During our careers we noticed an interesting pendulum swing in school maintenance. At first most school upkeep was done by school board employees. There were plumbers, carpenters, electricians, groundskeepers, painters and others. The larger jobs were contracted out, roofing, remodeling, HVAC. Then there was a movement toward contracting more and more of the services. The BoE had fewer employees, with less insurance and fewer pensions, less vehicle maintenance, less supply procurement, etc., etc. Slowly contracted maintenance costs began to rise and many began to say, “We could save money if we did these jobs ourselves.” So the pendulum went in the other direction, back to the start. At the heart, of course, is the debate: “Which is best: in house or contracted out?
The Fox in the Henhouse: How Privatization Threatens Democracy by Si Kahn and Elizabeth Minnich was published in 2005. In many ways it is an extension of the same debate, but, unfortunately, a pendulum is no longer the appropriate metaphor. In this case it is a run-away freight train and there doesn’t seem to be any coming back. What I found most frightening is that the privatization trends described in the book aren’t being discussed, much less dealt with, and the rate of take-over seems to be rapidly expanding. It’s been thirteen years since the warning and it seems that almost no one is listening.
The book begins with a discussion about the private good vs. the public good. What are the things that can best be done by government as opposed to the things that we can best be done by private enterprise? The essence of all this has to do with who makes decisions about how these things are organized and delivered. Once services are privatized, the public has less and less to say about the cost, quality and efficiency of the services.
Promoters of unfettered capitalism say that competition will drive out the inferior and inefficient. It doesn’t work that way. Thirty years ago when the Exxon Valdez despoiled Prince William Sound, I decided to boycott Exxon. My problem was that there was no alternative oil corporation with which to do business. They are all environmentally insensitive thieves. If I don’t like a particular drug company or insurance company, I can just switch to another fairer, less predatory, more socially conscious one. So far I haven’t found one. In a world of rapacious mega-corporations protective, sweetheart legislation and the “too-big-to-fail” mentality all but eliminate real competition.
At one time there seemed to be obvious demarcations between public and private. Though some anarchical conservatives will argue against almost all government involvement in our lives, there seem to be at least a few obvious areas in which government should play a significant role: health care, the military, highways, public safety, education and social welfare.
.The administration of health insurance must make the use of a bureaucracy of administrators, agents and clerks in order to function. Someone must do the paper work. There will always be bureaucratic stupidity and snafus. The question is, who do you want the bureaucrats to be? Do you want people who work for an insurance company whose main function is to maximize profits or government employees who theoretically have the interests of the people at heart? When the government screws up, I can seek the help of elected officials. If a company screws up, I’m more likely to be told,”Too bad.” The idea of a person being in control of his/her own healthcare is a myth.
It doesn’t stop there. Not only is health insurance out of our hands, the actual administration of facilities is becoming farther removed. In the eighties the ownership and control of hospitals started to shift from public to private and then to corporate. Many small, rural hospitals have closed down entirely because profitability overruled public need. From many there is a strong movement to privatize the Veteran’s Administration.
Our nation’s defense is not immune from the corporate plundering. PMCs (Private Military Companies) and PMSCs (Private Military and Security Contractors) are everywhere. These are separate from arms and munitions manufacturers. The short list includes The Supreme Group, L3 Communications, Compass Security, Service Employees International, DynCorp and AEGIS. Never heard of them? That’s the way they like it. The Department of Defense pays out much more to civilian employees and contractors than to actual soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines. And more and more of the actual combat jobs are being turned over to corporate mercenaries.
Our highways are impacted. Because most projects are large and complex, it doesn’t make sense for states to have all the equipment and engineering capabilities to build highways. Presently highway contracts take care of all but minor repairs. In most cases there is competitive bidding with an eye to quality control. Privatization, however, lurks in the background. In some states there are proposals for privately-owned toll roads.
Public safety is another area where privatization is having an effect. In the last forty years there has been a proliferation of security companies. They offer services.to industrial complexes, shopping centers and gated communities. For the most part the effects are minimal. Insufficient training, low pay and minimal benefits seem to be endemic. The problem is not so much that the police are becoming privatized, but that they are becoming militarized and the corporations are cashing in on the sales of paramilitary gear that is of dubious value to community security. Allied to the policing question is the matter of incarcerating the people that have been convicted of crimes. The trend started in prison medical facilities. It was difficult to justify having a full medical clinic in every prison. Medical services were contracted out. From there it was easy to contract other services until entire prisons became corporate. Much of our mass incarceration problem is directly related to the lobbying efforts of corporate prisons.
The desegregation of schools led to the mushrooming of private “academies” to maintain racial separation. Now there are those who want all of us to pay for their elitist institutions through voucher programs at the expense of public school funding. They want access to government funding but want to maintain their elective admissions policies, i.e. the learning disabled and behaviorally challenged need not apply. Another privatization trend in education is online college which in many cases offers learning of questionable value. Students used to be able to borrow money from the government at low interest rates. Now the bankers and other financial middlemen have stepped in to rake off a usurious cut right from the top. Furthermore, corporate backing has a tremendous influence on the scientific research being conducted in college and university laboratories.
Right wing advocates rant against “entitlements” but neglect to consider the greatest government handouts: corporate welfare, subsidies, sweetheart, no-bid contracts, write-offs, tax breaks, and allowances. Many are clamoring to turn public assistance programs, especially Social Security, over to Wall Street and let people manage their own retirement programs. Like managing one’s own health care, managing one’s own retirement plan is a myth.
The Fox in the Henhouse is a clarion call, an urgent warning. What began as a trend is quickly becoming an avalanche. At its simplest privatization is the movement toward a more elitist society. Those best able to pay will get better services, better health, better schools, safer neighborhoods and more secure retirements. Most of this started happening because we weren’t paying attention. Now we know. It is up to us to educate one another about the dangers of privatization and begin to reestablish control of the forces of the public good.
A special bonus of The Fox in the Henhouse is that the text is liberally (pun intended) supplemented with song lyrics from Kahn who is one of America’s premier singer-songwriters. He has been a civil rights, union and community organizer for more than 50 years. In 2017 Folk Alliance International bestowed on him the Folk Alliance Spirit of Folk Award.
February 1, 2015
This book was so hard to finish. I would have liked less preachy, folk song ideology and more research-based evidence to support my ALREADY THOROUGH hatred of privatization and capitalism. However, rather than using the work of scholars to back up their liberalism, the authors sacrifice credibility for the sake of a weak call to arms. Disappointed. Maybe this is why I found this copy on the 'free' shelf at my university library ...
August 20, 2012
Don't get me wrong, I agree with some of the ideas in this book. But when a book cites the U.S. national debt as $450+ trillion (which is off by a factor of 20), it becomes hard to trust the facts tat form the backbone of this book. The rhetoric is often also far short of fair and balanced. I hope that there are other books on Private Military Organizations, etc. that are a bit more rigorous in their arguments and fact-checking.
September 12, 2024
This book provided many great and large examples of the harmful effects privitization has had on our society- from healthcare to prisons to education.
I wish it had examined the relationship between government and the corporations a little more, and how politicians are working both. I disagree fundamentally that if everything was put completely in the government's hands today, it would function *well--* though this book convinced me it may at least be *better.*
I wish it had examined the relationship between government and the corporations a little more, and how politicians are working both. I disagree fundamentally that if everything was put completely in the government's hands today, it would function *well--* though this book convinced me it may at least be *better.*
January 23, 2008
I read this in a class full only of fellow liberals and lefties. It was so bad we all wanted to burn it. Books like this are the reason so many people hate us liberals. Putting your folk song lyrics into the text to boost your non-existent CD sales just shows that your dealer is lacing your weed with Drain-O. Even Abbie Hoffman would use this as Charmin.
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November 7, 2007haven't read it yet..
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews