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:
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
Citizens United & Corporate Power
Taxation, Inequality, and Public Funding
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
Higher Education & Student Debt
The Institute for College Access & Success (TICAS) — Annual Reports on Student Debt
Josh Mitchell, The Debt Trap: How Student Loans Became a National Catastrophe
Healthcare & Insurance Industry
Private Prisons
The Sentencing Project, “Capitalizing on Mass Incarceration: The Growth of Private Prisons”
ACLU, “Banking on Bondage: Private Prisons and Mass Incarceration”

Keep speaking truth, Francine!