[Pirateninfo] newsletter on "privatisation - public goods - regulation" January 04

[joscha]

New on our website! www.who-owns-the-world.org 

In his policy paper "From Public Goods to Public Accumulation" David 
Moore
shows, how contemporary discussions about public goods and development 
have
arisen from the reality that neo-liberal development strategies have
produced neither viable capitalist societies in the Third World nor
increased welfare for its majority. Global public goods discourse has 
arisen
because peripheral states are seen as incapable of performing 
developmental,
welfare, or security tasks. This discourse is confined to realms that 
do not
challenge a wavering neo-liberal hegemony. It thus avoids the concepts 
of
"services" and "basic needs" in favour of nebulous notions such as "a
facilitating environment for enterprise". In harsh terms, this is 
little
more than paving the way for primary accumulation in the broad sense; 
in
narrower ones, for the privatisation of services. One way to challenge 
the
direction of this discourse is to raise the possibility of "public
accumulation".
[http://www.wem-gehoert-die-welt.de/engl/02/moore.pdf]

In his review of the 2004 World Development Report "Making Services 
Work for
Poor People" Tim Kessler presents a critique of World Bank's analytical
framework to evaluate private or public provision of services, 
addressing
the costs and vast regulatory mechanisms to control private providers 
of
`public goods´ and their often bad performance. 
[http://www.networkideas.org/themes/privatisation/oct2003/pr08_Tim_Kessl
er.h
tm]
But crisis of neoliberalism seems to go ahead: even "good pupils" in
liberalization like El Salvador have to face strong social movements 
and
stop this kind of policy.
Ranja Sengupta analysis how healthcare privatisation was prevented.
[http://www.networkideas.org/themes/privatisation/aug2003/pr13_El_Salvad
or.h
tm] 

Fran Collyer explores current theories of the policy process of
privatisation. For him the notion of policy is central. He critics
shortcomings and suggests to combine class and network analysis.
[http://www.sociology.org/content/vol7.3/01_collyer.html]
Meanwhile privatisation policies in Europe continue: the
conservative-liberal German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 
kindly
presents a list of most important public enterprises to be privatised 
across
Europe in 2004 (German language).
[http://www.wem-gehoert-die-welt.de/01/privatisierungsliste2004.rtf] 
Meanwhile the pressure to privatise German savings banks is growing 
(read
the Englisch news in attachment).

Yves Salesse's article (in French) is an older one from 2002, but 
already
confronts privatisation of public services with their social 
appropriation
(not nationalisation) in an offensive way, imagining really European 
public
service enterprises.
[http://www.otherdavos.net/PDF/Salesse_-_Appropriation.pdf]
A totally different kind of appropriation based on everyday practices 
of
subversion is presented by the Yomango [http://www.yomango.net] 
initiative
>from Spain. They promote new forms of civil disobedience and direct 
action
against a further commodification and monetarisation of life as well as
appropriation of our desires by transnational corporation. Surly this 
is not
a model for a new kind of societalization, but it questions the way 
everyday
thinking works, touches subjectivities and provides an available 
practice
for the people in daily life.
[http://www.wem-gehoert-die-welt.de/engl/04/yomango.rtf]
The WienerBüroKombinat (WBK) produced a film, financed by the German
ministry for food, that excellently fits into that kind of practices,
showing how the young could get expensive high-quality bio-food. The 
film
"The Best of the Best" 
[[http://www.volkskunstschaffen.de/wbk/wbklinke.html,
avi, 5mb] won the 'Royal Award for the best film addressing a young
audience' at the Ecomove Festival 2003 in Berlin
[http://www.ecomove.de/berlin/1awards/10E.html].

And finally: have a look at SCIENCE magazine 302 (12 December 2003).
[http://www.sciencemag.org/sciext/sotp/]. This is a special issue -- 
nine
Review and Viewpoint articles that commemorated the anniversary of the 
1968
publication of the late Garrett Hardin's classic essay, "The Tragedy of 
the
Commons," [http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/162/3859/1243] 
and took a look at trends in the management of common resources in the 
35
years since the essay's publication. Supplementing the special issue is 
a
valuable collection of online resources,
[http://www.sciencemag.org/sciext/sotp/commons.shtml] including links 
to the
original essay and some of the subsequent scientific discussion it
engendered, as well as pointers to Web sites that provide additional
context. Unfortunately only for subscribers is Thomas Dietz, Elinor 
Ostrom,
and Paul C. Stern: The Struggle to Govern the Commons, Science 302,
1907-1912 (2003).

We hope this might be useful. Please send us information/articles about
privatisations across Europe, about actions against this process and 
about
alternative ways of regulation and/or re-appropriation! 

All best
Michael Wuttke

Dieter Klein

Mario Candeias

Rainer Rilling
Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung
030-44310-129
rilling at rosalux.de
www.rosaluxemburgstiftung.de