Privatization may not sound to you like a threat to democracy. It’s not a familiar word, and it isn’t often used by people who are struggling for democracy, for freedom, for justice. People haven’t usually stood up at rallies and made rousing speeches either for or against privatization. That’s because privatization is the kind of word economists and policymakers use. What it means in practice, its purposes and effects both internationally and in the United States, are hidden by such dry language.

We believe not only that privatization is a threat but that it is the threat to democratic commitments to the public good. It is a threat to the commonwealth that sustains us all, in the United
States and around the globe. We believe that we fail at our peril to see that the possibility of public provision for our basic human needs, safety and security, our basic human rights, and our high aspirations to liberty, justice, and equality are under concerted attack by corporate privatizers and
the officials who do their bidding from inside government. We believe that efficiency in pursuit of profits is not at all the same thing as effectiveness in providing for and protecting democratic values and dreams of liberty, equality, and a decent life for all. So, then, what is privatization?

Privatization as an agenda for the United States has been described by the Wall Street Journal, a generally reliable reflector of corporate thinking, as the "effort to bring the power of private markets to bear on traditional government benefits and services."