Talk:Privatization/Archive 3

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I feel sorry for wikipedia

This article on privatization clearly fails as a wikipedia article. There is way too much subjective wording and immature counter arguments imbedded in this page. Because of this lack of objectively and integrity, this article needs to be seriously reworked. There are expert takes on privatization, but it seems because of current political debates, these expert opinions have been suppressed. I hope someone will go through the task of fixing, but mostly deleting, the blob of pundit-speak that is this article.

Problems: 1. There's a considerable lack of citations. Example: every bullet point in "Supporting" and "Opposing" needs a citation.

2. Rash (and not cited) generalizations and unsupported theoretical claims Example: Intermediate Views section first paragraph -"Others don't dispute that well-run for-profit... management." You can't say "Others don't dispute" in a wikipedia article. Have you talked to literally everyone in the world?

Example: "Supporting" section, 7th bullet -"Civil-liberty concerns. A company controlled by the state may have access to information or assets which may be used against dissidents or any individuals who disagree with their policies."

Example: "Opposing" section, last bullet -"Job Loss. Due to the additional financial burden placed on privatized companies to succeed without any government help, unlike the public companies, jobs could be lost to keep more money in the company."

3. Very bad structure. Everything in the "results" section should be split into other sections. Many arguments throughout the article are restated. Also, there are counter arguments mixed in the Supporting and Opposing section. Either arguments should be in completely separate sections, one giant section, or separated according to what type of argument (economic, social, etc.) An extreme option would be to split this article into two articles, with one dealing with definitions and examples, and another dealing with arguments.

Now to the less significant trivial problems

Wording: Notable Examples section first paragraph "The largest privatization in history involved Japan Post." How about "Japan Post was the largest privatization in history." (If you can find a citation) "Involved" is slightly ambiguous.

In the second sentence of the Differing Views-Supporting section they use the phrase "red-tape." I don't know what Wikipedia's policy is, but slang should not be in an encyclopedia. Imagine if a Wikipedia article read "The CEO usually makes more bread than the mail workers."

Because I was super bored, I looked up the claim in the "Results" section in the first paragraph that privatization increases GDP. "..In competitive industries...privatization consistently improves efficiency... such efficiency gains mean a one-off increase in GDP, but through improved incentives to innovate and reduce costs also tend to raise the rate of economic growth."

Since the source isn't cited at the end, it's ambiguous which source the claim came from. [8] is a book, so I could only look up [9] and [10]. I'm not sure if I can copy and paste the words here so I have to paraphrase. From [10] p10 it says privatization seems to have a positive effect, but there lacks enough evidence to constitute causality. From [9] p36 the paper says privatization only helps an economy when the government makes reforms like increasing incentives and competition.

Neither of these sources say efficiency gains from privatization increases GDP.

Around the interwebz I found another study, this one only 7 years old. http://org.elon.edu/ipe/Adi%20final.pdf Their study suggests a large negative correlation between GDP and privatization in developing worlds. They seem very skeptical of their results though.

The only thing one can say is that the effect of privatization on economic growth is disputed. Unless of course someone finds a relevant recent study. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Drummingasm (talk • contribs) 07:38, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Privatization post-communistic countries in eastern Europe.

Could somebody please add, as an example, a brief description of privatization that happened in eastern European countries after the fall of communism in 1989 (e.g. in Czechoslovakia). E.g. in Czechoslovakia the privatization was massive. — Preceding unsigned comment added by David Pal (talk • contribs) 22:33, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Misuse of sources; vandalism

Hi, This edit isn't vandalism. That editor was removing content that misrepresented the source. Please stop editwarring to reinsert content which misrepresents sources. This is a neutrality problem. bobrayner (talk) 00:29, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

The legitimate, sourced content was removed as an act of vandalism by an IP with a history of POV-pushing vandalism. Even the IP's reason for removing the valid content made clear it was POV-pushing on his part, calling it "(biased socialistic ideology)". So please stop edit warring to defend this act of vandalism. The content is sourced, and it does not misrepresent the source in any way, it relays information from the source directly and correctly. Inqvisitor (talk) 02:06, 11 February 2014 (UTC)
Bobrayner is insistent on deleting any sources that paint privatization in a negative light, even in the OPPOSITION section. These citations are from reliable sources (such as Oxford University) and are certainly relevant to an article on privatization. The ITPI is the foremost organization in opposition to privatization, so their views are certainly allowed in the Opposition section, ESPECIALLY if the neoliberal corporate funded think tank The Heritage Foundation can be used as a source in the Support section.--C.J. Griffin (talk) 23:45, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
This identification with pro and anti is part of the problem, not part of the solution. bobrayner (talk) 15:20, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Laissez-faire Taoism is pure hogwash

It is not true that Taoism has the laissez-faire principle. Han Dynasty has in deed practiced land privatization on some level, but this does not mean that Taoism can be connected in any ways to classical or neoclassical economy theory and laissez-faire. I propose this argument that has no any historical of philosophical relevancy and should be removed.

As German economist Silja Graupe concludes on her extensive study Do Daoist Principles Justify Laissez Faire Policies? A Critical Examination of “Market Daoism” (published on International Journal for Field-Being, Vol. 6, No. 1 (2007)): "Given an indigenous interpretation of Daoism, Daoist thought has to be considered far apart from classical and neoclassical economics. (...) Daoism shares neither the philosophical assumptions nor the social implications of the doctrine of laissez faire." 5.54.8.252 (talk) 22:09, 9 September 2014 (UTC)

Privatization & center control: how do they come to be?

The article deals with pro con of privatization as well as historical instances of it. I does not answer what are the historical processes that encouraged privatization to happen in certain places at the time they happened. It also does not answer what were the reasons for centrally controlled industries in the first place. Why was the economy controlled by government even in countries without absolutism history. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.90.202.179 (talk) 05:49, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

Florio

Florio's work includes a large number of findings & assertions. One of his major findings, which seems well-based despite his somewhat wobbly handling of statistics, is that all of the privatized industries had a productivity leap under the Tories- mostly in the 1980s, but at least one in the early 1990s. Another of his findings, and one for which he makes a great play, is that the productivity leap in the majority of cases did not coincide with the date of privatization- in some cases pre-dating it and in some cases occurring later. This second assertion was the only one reported in the WP privatization article. Florio's emphasis, and the inclusion of only that second finding, by whomever originally included it in this article, seemed to me to be contentious and not be a NPOV. Hence I added another finding- the one I refer to first above. This restores some political balance. He also had a number of other findings which could be included, but these two seem to me to be the two main ones which were well-supported. @Bobrayner: if you think I've fudged the text, I suggest you read Florio's text and my original edit more closely. If we need to get into page numbers and precise quotes, let's do so. Gravuritas (talk) 18:22, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

Advocacy

C.J. Griffin, why the insistence on inserting cherrypicked content that cites ITPA? That is obviously not a neutral source. Further, I'm deeply concerned that attempts to bring this article in line with WP:NPOV are seen as a game that you can just keep on reverting. bobrayner (talk) 02:28, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

It's not neutral, it's not a reliable source, and there's no consensus to keep it; but I see C.J. Griffin has reverted again, rather than discuss. Why does C.J. Griffin do this on so many articles? bobrayner (talk) 02:40, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
First of all, In These Times constitutes WP:RS. Secondly, you are removing so-called advocacy you disagree with. Why allow The Heritage Foundation to remain while removing In These Times and ITPA? And where is the consensus to purge this content?--C.J. Griffin (talk) 02:44, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

I would like to know where other editors stand on this issue. Bob Rayner is fixated on purging content that is critical of privatization (or "crap" as he calls it), while leaving intact materials from such unbiased and reliable sources (LOL!) as The Heritage Foundation and something called "Libertarian Papers". The hypocrisy really is quite astounding! This is a pattern seen in other articles he hits. So should this critical content be removed? If so, then what about the aforementioned citations I mentioned which are blatantly biased? Is it right and proper to remove criticism of privatization but allow all praise from reactionary sources to remain? Is this not a violation of WP:NPOV?--C.J. Griffin (talk) 04:04, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

I would suggest that much of what is said in the paragraph above is irrelevant. The question surely is whether a specific piece of content is or is not NPOV and whether the source is WP:RS. Defending something by attacking other entries or the other editor is not on. After admittedly only a 60-second glance at the source, I'm not convinced that 'In the Public Interest' is indeed accurately described as 'a resource centre on privatisation', and on that basis alone I would prefer that the content was not in WP: I'd like a bit more honesty. I think that in the opinion section (on both sides) there is a great deal of companies may do this or may do that, which really is just a lot of puff on one side and smears on the other: opinions should be backed by facts. I would suggest weeding out a lot of this dross.
Gravuritas (talk) 15:02, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

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Dr. Brown's comment on this article

Dr. Brown has reviewed this Wikipedia page, and provided us with the following comments to improve its quality:


"There are four main methods[citation needed] of privatization:

1.Share issue privatization (sip) - selling shares on the stock market 2.Asset sale privatization - selling an entire organization (or part of it) to a strategic investor, usually by auction or by using the Treuhand model 3.Voucher privatization - distributing shares of ownership to all citizens, usually for free or at a very low price. 4.Privatization from below - Start-up of new private businesses in formerly socialist countries."

Comment: There is another important method: Management-Employee Buyouts (MEBO) - distributing shares for free or at a very low price to workers in the organization.

"SIPs are more likely to be used when capital markets are less developed or under developed and there is lower income inequality."

Comment: No, SIPS are more likely to be used when capital markets are MORE developed. They have been much more common in developed Western European countries than in transition countries.

"As a result of higher political and currency risk deterring foreign investors, asset sales occur more commonly in developing countries."

Comment: They have been very common in transition countries too, so I would say "more commonly in developing and transition countries."

"If the transfer of vouchers is permitted, a market in vouchers could be created, with companies offering to pay money for them."

Comment: I suggest replacing "companies" with "investors" here.

"A 2009 study published in The Lancet medical journal estimated that as many as a million working men died as a result of economic shocks associated with mass privatization in the former Soviet Union and in Eastern Europe during the 1990s."

Comment: Another study in the Lancet in 2010 challenges the 2009 study. See Earle, John S., Scott Gehlbach. 2010. "Did Mass Privatisation Really Increase Post-Communist Mortality?" The Lancet 375(9712): 372. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(10)60159-6. This paragraph is not well balanced. Studies have found positive privatization effects in some countries and regions across transition economies and negative effects in others. For evidence of this heterogeneity see, for example, Djankov, Simeon, and Peter Murrell. 2002. "Enterprise Restructuring in Transition: A Quantitative Survey," Journal of Economic Literature 40(3): 739-92; Brown, J. David, John S. Earle, and Almos Telegdy. 2006. "The Productivity Effects of Privatization: Longitudinal Estimates from Hungary, Romania, Russia, and Ukraine," Journal of Political Economy 114(1): 61-99; and Brown, J. David, John S. Earle, and Scott Gehlbach. 2013. "Privatization," in The Oxford Handbook of the Russian Economy, Michael Alexeev and Shlomo Weber, eds., New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

"In Latin American, there is a discrepancy between the economic efficiency of privatization and the political/social ramifications that occur."

Comment: Change "American" to "America".

"Increased efficiency. Private companies and firms have a greater incentive to produce more goods and services for the sake of reaching a customer base and hence increasing profits. A public organization would not be as productive due to the lack of financing allocated by the entire government's budget that must consider other areas of the economy."

Comment: This paragraph confuses volume of production and efficiency I suggest changing it to something like "Increased efficiency. Private companies and firms have a greater incentive to produce goods and services more efficiently to increase profits." The paragraph also mentions financial allocation, but I suggest dropping that, because it is mentioned under "Capital" further down.

"Likewise, private goods and services should remain in the hands of the private sector."

Comment: This sentence appears to be misplaced, and I suggest either deleting it or editing it to make it more clear how it fits with the paragraph.

"However, the selling process could lack transparency, allowing the purchaser and civil servants controlling the sale to gain personally."

Comment: As with the previous comment, I find it strange to have arguments for privatization in the section on opposition to privatization. I suggest keeping arguments for privatization in the support section and arguments against privatization in the opposition section.

"The public does not have any control or oversight of private companies."

Comment: That isn't true - governments regulate private businesses. Perhaps change this to "The public has less control and oversight over private companies."

We hope Wikipedians on this talk page can take advantage of these comments and improve the quality of the article accordingly.

Dr. Brown has published scholarly research which seems to be relevant to this Wikipedia article:

  • Reference : J. David Brown & John S. Earle & Scott Gehlbach, 2008. "Helping Hand or Grabbing Hand? State Bureaucracy and Privatization Effectiveness," Upjohn Working Papers and Journal Articles 08-142, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.

ExpertIdeasBot (talk) 12:40, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

I have made almost all of the changes, apart from "This paragraph is not well balanced. Studies have found positive privatization effects in some countries and regions across transition economies and negative effects in others. For evidence of this heterogeneity see, for example, Djankov, Simeon, and Peter Murrell. 2002. "Enterprise Restructuring in Transition: A Quantitative Survey," Journal of Economic Literature 40(3): 739-92; Brown, J. David, John S. Earle, and Almos Telegdy. 2006. "The Productivity Effects of Privatization: Longitudinal Estimates from Hungary, Romania, Russia, and Ukraine," Journal of Political Economy 114(1): 61-99; and Brown, J. David, John S. Earle, and Scott Gehlbach. 2013. "Privatization," in The Oxford Handbook of the Russian Economy, Michael Alexeev and Shlomo Weber, eds., New York, NY: Oxford University Press." and "However, the selling process could lack transparency, allowing the purchaser and civil servants controlling the sale to gain personally.

Comment: As with the previous comment, I find it strange to have arguments for privatization in the section on opposition to privatization. I suggest keeping arguments for privatization in the support section and arguments against privatization in the opposition section." With the second recommendation - surely this is an argument against privatisation rather than one for it? Absolutelypuremilk (talk) 15:04, 7 June 2016 (UTC)

Dr. Kocenda's comment on this article

Dr. Kocenda has reviewed this Wikipedia page, and provided us with the following comments to improve its quality:


This relates to the privatizations in formerly command economies in Europe.

First, background of the mass privatization schemes can be described as follows: A general outline of a mass privatization using vouchers emerged in 1988. Lewandowski (1997) describes: "Mass privatization was a unique response to the post-communist challenge. The idea of distributing vouchers to promote equitable popular participation in privatization was elaborated by market-oriented advisers to the Solidarity movement in Gdansk, Poland, in mid-1988. Vouchers were intended to make up for insufficient supply of capital; as a special type of investment currency, they would be allocated to all citizens and tradable for shares of privatized companies. The concept was presented at a conference in November 1988—when communists were still in power—in response to a solicitation for proposals on how to transform Polish economy." A description of the method was published by Lewandowski and Szomburg (1990). The voucher scheme was creatively adopted in several European transition countries, albeit with a different success, though. References: Lewandowski, J. (1997). The political context of mass privatization in Poland. In: Lieberman, I.W., Nestor, S., Desai, R. (eds.), Between state and market: Mass privatization in transition economies. Studies of Economies in Transformation no. 23. Washington D.C.: The World Bank.

Lewandowski, J., Szomburg, J. (1990). Dekalog prywatyzacji (Rules of privatization). Tygodnik Solidarność, no. 45, Suplement.

So far the most comprehensive account of the effects of privatization and ownership in European transition economies is provided in Estrin et al. (2009). They conclude that the most important policy implication of our survey is that privatization per se does not guarantee improved performance, at least not in the short- to medium-run. Type of private ownership, corporate governance, access to know-how and markets, and the legal and institutional system matter for firm restructuring and performance. Foreign ownership tends to have a positive effect on performance. The positive effect of privatization to domestic owners, to the extent that it exists, takes a number of years to materialize. Ref:

Estrin, S., Hanousek, J., Kočenda, E., Svejnar, J., 2009. Effects of Privatization and Ownership in Transition Economies. Journal of Economic Literature, 47(3), 699-728.


We hope Wikipedians on this talk page can take advantage of these comments and improve the quality of the article accordingly.

Dr. Kocenda has published scholarly research which seems to be relevant to this Wikipedia article:


  • Reference : Evzen Kocenda & Jan Hanousek, 2010. "Divide and Privatize : Firms Break-up and Performance," Working Papers 291, Institut fur Ost- und Sudosteuropaforschung (Institute for East and South-East European Studies).

ExpertIdeasBot (talk) 18:28, 27 June 2016 (UTC)

Dr. Florio's comment on this article

Dr. Florio has reviewed this Wikipedia page, and provided us with the following comments to improve its quality:

On Etimology, and Nazi privatization, I suggest to cite Germa Bel article in the Journal of Economic perspectives. Bel, Germa`. 2006. The Coining of “Privatization” and Germany’s National Socialist Party. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 20: 3 (Summer): pp. 187-94. now this is in the list of unlisted references.

The reference to Ronald Reagan is not accurate, as in the US he promoted market liberalization, there were no state-owned enterprises to privatise.

On popular dissatisfaction with privatization in Latin America, see: Privatisation discontent and utility reform in Latin America D Checchi, M Florio, J Carrera The Journal of Development Studies 45 (3), 333-350

On privatization of British Telecom, see: Does Privatisation Matter? The Long‐Term Performance of British Telecom over 40 Years M Florio Fiscal Studies 24 (2), 197-234

The list of 'support' arguments is long, and in some cases the arguments are repeated and expressed without citing the supporting evidence. Similarly, the list of the 'opposition' arguments needs improvement and evidence. For network industries see Network industries and social welfare: The experiment that reshuffled European utilities M Florio

OUP Oxford, 2013

We hope Wikipedians on this talk page can take advantage of these comments and improve the quality of the article accordingly.

We believe Dr. Florio has expertise on the topic of this article, since he has published relevant scholarly research:

  • Reference : M. Florio & R. Brau & R. Doronzo, 2008. "Gas industry reforms and consumers' prices in the European Union," Working Paper CRENoS 200816, Centre for North South Economic Research, University of Cagliari and Sassari, Sardinia.

ExpertIdeasBot (talk) 15:18, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

Regarding Reagan and privatisation- in two minutes I've found Conrail, which disproves Florio's point immediately.
Gravuritas (talk) 18:56, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

How corruption could be bigger in Russia without privatization?

Privatizations in Russia and Latin America were accompanied by large-scale corruption during the sale of the state-owned companies. Those with political connections unfairly gained large wealth, which has discredited privatization in these regions. While media have widely reported the grand corruption that accompanied those sales, studies have argued that in addition to increased operating efficiency, daily petty corruption is, or would be, larger without privatization, and that corruption is more prevalent in non-privatized sectors. Furthermore, there is evidence to suggest that extralegal and unofficial activities are more prevalent in countries that privatized less.

Ehhhm, what? "Corruption during privatization in Russia" - means that some guys took people's property literally almost for free (for 1-2-5% of its costs, and yes, it was fully approved by western liberals). Which "petty daily corruption" could possibly be bigger than that? What profit people gained from supposed "increased operating efficiency" (and there weren't any increased efficiency in reality, btw - just look at the GDP rate - which has fallen to the bottom) - if companies were private - most of all supposed profit was going to owners anyway, not to all other people. It is just funny, how somebody dares to justify what's happened in Russia - after all data, which everybody can see - about how GDP fell and about dire poverty increase and about tons of deaths, etc, etc as results of this privatization. It is sooo easy - if you own something expensive(like company) and which gives you profit - you shouldn't sell it cheap, the more so - give it for free. And it doesn't matter if you one person or the whole country. And still some people trying to make arguments, why if community of people owns something profitable - they should give it to them for free or sell them cheap - and don't try to own profitable things themself anymore. 2A00:1370:811C:26D9:85B3:C8C8:F6E8:6C0E (talk) 21:51, 2 December 2018 (UTC)From Russia

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