Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The transfer of a company or organization from government to private ownership and control.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun changing something from state to private ownership or control

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Coined by Sidney Merlin in 1943 though aware of earlier reprivatization.

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Examples

  • Romney campaign aides reject the term "privatization" to describe their approach.

    Romney Proposes Voucher Option for Medicare Plan Jonathan Weisman 2011

  • Government has avoided the word privatization and instead has adopted a program of “disinvestment,” generally intending to sell off partial ownership but retain majority control.

    THE COMMANDING HEIGHTS DANIEL YERGIN 1998

  • Scouring the United States for ideas, he ran across the word privatization in the work of the economic and social theorist Peter Drucker.

    THE COMMANDING HEIGHTS DANIEL YERGIN 1998

  • We should retire the word "privatization" in favor of its Big Brother, "corporatization."

    Ken Allen: Say 'Corporatization,' Not 'Privatization' Ken Allen 2011

  • Application of the word "privatization," however, is almost always a misuse of the English language, albeit one that has become so common that it falls automatically off the tongue and flows unchecked past the ear.

    Ken Allen: Say 'Corporatization,' Not 'Privatization' Ken Allen 2011

  • Democrats had already planned to make the Ryan Medicare plan, which they call privatization, a centerpiece of their efforts to unseat Republicans in Congress.

    Romney Proposes Voucher Option for Medicare Plan Jonathan Weisman 2011

  • And what that exemplifies is what we call the privatization of culture.

    American Culture, American Tastes: Social Change & the 20th Century 1999

  • Drucker, credited with inventing the word privatization, now foresees a coming backlash of “bitterness and contempt” against the rich in the United States.

    THE COMMANDING HEIGHTS DANIEL YERGIN 1998

  • The IMF will loan you money to cover your ever burdening interest payments but they attach a provision that if you default, you will have to give them your assets in what they call privatization foreclosure.

    msnbc.com: Top msnbc.com headlines 2011

  • The IMF will loan you money to cover your ever burdening interest payments but they attach a provision that if you default, you will have to give them your assets in what they call privatization foreclosure.

    msnbc.com: Top msnbc.com headlines 2012

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