Customer Reviews

You Don't Always Get What You Pay for: The Economics of Privatization (Century Foundation Books (Cornell Paperback))

5 star:		(3)
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This is an excellently-written critique of privatization. In case after case, Sclar reveals that all is not as it might seem, and that beneath the apparition of improved efficiency lies a different reality supporters of privatization might not want revealed.

The book does not tell the whole story. Sclar has long been a critic of privatization, and he frankly doesn't highlight the successes of privatization -- and these certainly do exist. I don't really think there is a case to be made specifically "for privatization" or "anti-privatization," but a requirement for more balanced analysis, which has not been present in the output of privatization advocates. There is also a need to examine ways that the public sector can be made more efficient without necessarily bringing in a privatization approach.

Sclar provides a valuable service in laying out a series of critical paths in an uncommonly well-written text, and prompts readers to ask the difficult questions. Well worth reading. If you are specifically interested in public transportation, also take a look at my new book -- The Private Provision of Public Transport -- available through Amazon.

Neck-deep in ideologically driven rhetoric about how privatization is as American as motherhood and apple pie and must be good for you? Frustrated at knowing there's more to this but you would need an un-bought economist to help you understand the real story? Help is here. Buy this book. Read, mark, learn, inwardly digest. . . . Sclar is going to have an impact on this debate. His parsing of the issues is a great start and, what's best, this book is going to stimulate more like it. This is the beginning of the skeptical and critical assay of the issues. Go for it. You too can now begin to build your own informed voice to start the shaping of a balanced dialogue. (By the way, the point is well made that improvement of public sector services, not just resistance to privatization initiatives, is the course we must set.)

In his book, Elliott Sclar takes complex economic theories and makes them comprehensible for the rest of us. He provides compelling new arguments against privitization, and adds new depth to the on going debate. A must for people entering the field and even those already in the field.

This is a well rounded review of the privatization of government. It provides a good backdrop for the analysis of alternative privatization schemes, while using anectodes to make the point.

In his book, Elliott Sclar takes complex obtuse economic theories and makes them comprehensible for the rest of us. He adds a new element to the on-going debate on privitization. A must read for anyone new to the field and even those who are already in it. It is even a fairly interesting read for those in no way affiliated with the field.