The Privatization Agenda Goes Bust

The Privatization Agenda Goes Bust: "The collapse of Carillion, the mammoth UK government contractor that went bankrupt Monday, was wholly made in Britain, although it has negative consequences internationally.

The reason for Carillion’s bankruptcy, which puts vital public services and thousands of jobs at risk, is that the firm and its component companies grew fat during the first phase of neoliberal economic policy and could not cope with the more recent phase, austerity."

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The record of privatization, after close to 40 years of evaluation, is mixed at best, but it has been profitable for contractors. However, most of those studies are from the pre-2008 era. This article suggests that in the post-2008 environment, austerity policies have put government on a starvation diet. If government doesn't have the money to pay for construction and repair of infrastructure and provision of services, then firms that want to perform those tasks on a privatized contractual basis are in trouble.