Selling Off—And Selling Out—The Public Sector

Whitney Curry Wimbish at The Baffler:

Mainstream media outlets tend to skip those details when they talk about privatization, as if a corporation is a sentient monolith and not run by individual human beings like McKesson chief executive officer John H. Hammergren, who in 2011 was paid more money than any other CEO in America. He retired at the end of March and will reportedly receive a $114 million pension, in addition to other benefits worth nearly $25 million. While vets struggle to get competent treatment for depression and service members live in houses with mice and mold, Hammergren’s home, until recently, was a 23,000-square-foot compound in Contra Costa County that included a rock climbing wall; courts for tennis, bocce ball, racquetball, and squash; a car wash; and a yoga center. He sold it last year for three times the $3 million he bought it for in 1996. (He had been hoping to sell it for seven times as much.)

Government enablers of privatization hand contracts to the business class because they want their campaign contributions, and later, once they’re out of office, they want jobs and bloviation gigs. They also want public works that really are falling apart to stop being a problem for their approval ratings.

more here.