Undoing Privatization: A Roadmap Back to the Public Good

How we begin reclaiming what should never have been for sale

This is not about returning to some romantic past.

It is about restoring balance where profit has overwhelmed democracy.

Undoing extreme privatization cannot happen all at once — but it can happen in deliberate stages.

PHASE ONE: Repair Democracy Itself

1. Overturn Citizens United

This is the keystone. Without it, nothing else fully holds.

Citizens United allows corporations and billionaires to:

• Buy influence

• Block reform

• Shape policy for profit

Paths forward:

• Constitutional amendment declaring money ≠ speech

• Supreme Court reversal

• State-level resolutions pressuring Congress

We already have movements working toward this. This is not theoretical.

2. Rebuild the Tax System: Tax the Rich & Close Corporate Escape Hatches

Decades of tax cuts for wealthy individuals and corporations have starved public institutions, manufacturing budget crises that are then used to justify privatization. Underfunded schools, hospitals, water systems, and infrastructure don’t fail by accident — they fail by design.

What must change:

• Restore progressive tax rates on high earners (historically normal).

• End corporate offshoring and close loopholes.

• Tax wealth and extreme concentrations of capital.

• Tax stock buybacks.

• End special tax breaks for private prisons, charter networks, and private hospital chains.

Goal: Fund the public good so privatizers can’t claim government “can’t afford” basic services.

3. Curb corporate capture

• Stronger lobbying restrictions

• Full transparency in campaign funding

• Mandatory disclosure of political donors

• Public financing of elections

This phase creates the legal oxygen for everything that follows.

PHASE TWO: Reclaim Essential Systems

These are the pillars that should NEVER operate on profit incentives.

4. Healthcare as a public system

We should not need “health insurance” at all.

Model systems exist:

• UK: National Health Service

• Canada: Single-payer model

• Germany: Public insurance model

• Scandinavia: Universal care

Core features:

• Care not tied to employment

• No profit motive to deny treatment

• Negotiated drug pricing

• Universal access

Private care can exist — but not control the system.

5. Education as infrastructure, not a marketplace

Public universities must return to their mission:

• Education, not branding

• Teaching, not luxury competition

Key steps:

• Restore state funding

• Cap tuition

• Scale back administrative bloat

• Prioritize teaching over amenities

• End debt-as-normal model

Education should expand opportunity — not ration it.

6. End private prisons — completely

There is no ethical version of profit incarceration.

Prisons being private means:

More prisoners = more revenue — that is incompatible with justice.

This is one of the MOST achievable reversals. Several states are already partway there.

PHASE THREE: Rebuild the Commons

The commons is everything we share and depend on.

This includes:

• Clean water

• Infrastructure

• Libraries

• Public transportation

• Affordable housing

• Broadband

• Environmental protections

• Public parks and green spaces

When these are privatized: Access becomes profit-based Instead of need-based. Rebuilding the commons restores civic life.

PHASE FOUR: Rebalance the Role of Markets

This is not about eliminating capitalism.

It is about placing boundaries around it.

Markets should serve society — not govern it.

That means:

• Regulation of essential services

• Limits on private equity ownership

• Anti-monopoly enforcement

• Price transparency laws

• Public oversight

Profit must not decide who lives, learns, or heals.

Is This Possible in Your Lifetime?

Here is the honest answer:

• FULL transformation? Probably not.

• Significant reversal? Yes.

• Real structural change? Absolutely.

History shows progress tends to move in waves, not straight lines.

You are not planting a seed for tomorrow.

You are planting an orchard for the next generation — and watering it now.

What Individuals Can Do Right Now

This roadmap only matters if people can touch it.

1. Support structural reform

• Back movements to overturn Citizens United

• Support public financing of elections

2. Ask one guiding question

Before every policy:

Who benefits — and who pays?

3. Advocate locally

• School boards

• City councils

• County commissions

• Public utility boards

Local decisions shape privatization.

4. Protect the language

Refuse euphemisms like:

• “School choice”

• “Efficiency”

• “Modernization”

  When euphemisms disguise profit motives

A final grounding thought

This work is not about rage.

It is about repair.

It is about the slow, steady return of democracy to citizens.

And it begins With clarity. With voice. With writing. With attention.

“Citizens United was a blow to democracy — but it doesn’t have to be the final word. Politicians can listen to what the vast majority of the public wants, even if big donors don’t like it.” BC

📚 References & Further Reading

Privatization & the Public Good

• Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine (overview of privatization during crises)

• Henry Giroux, Neoliberalism’s War on Higher Education

Citizens United & Corporate Power

• Brennan Center for Justice, “Citizens United

• Harvard Law Review, “Citizens United vs FEC”

• Nancy MacClean, Democracy in Chains (historical roots of anti-public systems)

Taxation, Inequality, and Public Funding

• ProPublica — The Secret IRS Files

• Gabriel Zucman & Emmanuel Saez — The Triumph of Injustice

• Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) – corporate tax avoidance

• OECD Tax Policy Studies – comparing U.S. tax structure to other democracies

• Economic Policy Institute (EPI) – effects of top tax rate cuts

• Christopher Faricy — Welfare for the Wealthy

Higher Education & Student Debt

• Pew, “Higher Education’s Uncertain Fiscal Future”

• The Institute for College Access & Success (TICAS) — Annual Reports on Student Debt

• Josh Mitchell, The Debt Trap: How Student Loans Became a National Catastrophe

• Sara Goldrick-Rab, Paying the Price

Healthcare & Insurance Industry

• Commonwealth Fund, “International Health Care System

• Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), “Why Does the U.S. Spend So Much on Healthcare?”

• Elizabeth Rosenthal, An American Sickness

• Atul Gawande, Being Mortal

Private Prisons

• The Sentencing Project, “Capitalizing on Mass Incarceration: The Growth of Private Prisons”

• ACLU, “Banking on Bondage: Private Prisons and Mass Incarceration”

• SmartAsset, The Economics of the American Prison System

• U.S. Department of Justice — Office of Inspector General, “Review of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Monitoring of Contract Prisons”

International Public Service Models

• OECD, “Government at a Glance”

• World Health Organization, Global Health Expenditure Database

• UNESCO, “Education as a Public Good”

Public Infrastructure & the Commons

• American Society of Civil Engineers, U.S. Infrastructure Report Card

• Institute for Local Self-Reliance, Research on Utilities, Broadband, Water, and Public Systems

• David Bollier, Think Like a Commoner