Privatisation

Abstract

The word privatisation, according to economic folklore, first appeared on a printed page in The Economist in the early 1960s. ‘It was suggested by somebody now dead who may have subconsciously pinched it from something published earlier somewhere else’ (The Economist, January 3 1992). Attribution may perhaps be eventually resolved when ‘privatisation’ finds its way into the Oxford English Dictionary. Currently the word is taken to mean: (a) transfer of ownership of state assets from the public to the private sector; or (b) transfer of provision of services from public bodies to private enterprise. ‘Privatisation’ is synonymous with denationalisation. The years of the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s and 1970s were the period of nationalisation when Socialist ideology was being put into practice throughout the world. The means of production, distribution, finance and communication were taken over by the state to a varying extent in different countries. The 1980s saw a return to a modified version of the laissez-faire philosophy and to market economics. The UK pioneered privatisation in 1979. It became, and continues to be, an international phenomenon in the 1990s.