Partners, Not Rivals: Privatization and the Public Good - Hardcover

Minow, Martha

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0807043362 ISBN 13: 9780807043363

Publisher: Beacon Press, 2002

Synopsis

In a time of increasing privatization of public services, can we ensure that profit doesn't outweigh the public good?

Nowadays for-profit companies manage everything from education to criminal justice. It's a fact of life that private commercial interests are here to stay. In school, students watch Channel One, a broadcast of news features and commercials geared to a young audience, and are served fast food from Taco Bell and Pizza Hut in their cafeterias. Privately managed prisons balance profits against the costs of rehabilitating and educating inmates. For-profit hospitals treat patients but also seek to maximize returns for their shareholders. What happens when public and private interests come into conflict?

As always, renowned legal scholar Martha Minow ("a human dynamo," says Stanford Law School Dean Kathleen Sullivan) sheds light on this complicated picture. She argues that these new arrangements aren't necessarily bad—market forces can be used to improve public services—but the partnership must be structured correctly. Certain public values must be preserved, including antidiscrimination and respect for individual autonomy and choice.

Praise for Between Vengeance and Forgiveness:

"Imaginative, compassionate, and compelling, Martha Minow's Between Vengeance and Forgiveness is a tour de force."
—Eric K. Yamamoto, University of Hawaii

"In an area of wrenching human and difficult intellectual dimensions, Martha Minow has written an extraordinarily perceptive, sensitive-
and moving-book."
—Abram Chayes, author of Preventing Conflict in the Post-Communist World

About this title

Review

"Martha Minow is one of our nation's wisest and most engaging public philosophers.... Like John Dewey, she asks how we can strengthen our sense of mutual civic obligation and social solidarity without compromising our individual freedoms. She cuts through an encrusted debate over privatization with a lucidity and freshness we badly need."

Minow makes us aware of changes in our understanding of freedom and democracy and our commitment to provide for basic human needs. This book allows for greater understanding of the overarching philosophical issues that encompass these changes in public policy. --Erin Morris Miller, American School Board Journal
"Minow raises many provocative issues. . . . She writes with concern and conviction. Minow's argument for public-private partnership rather than rivalry is a compelling one." --Michael Bisesi, America: The Catholic Weekly Magazine

Synopsis

In a time of increasing privatisation of public services, can we ensure that profit doesn't outweigh the public good? Martha Minow sheds light on this complicated picture. She argues that the new arrangements aren't necessarily bad - market forces can be used to improve public services - but the partnership must be structured correctly. Certain public values must be preserved, including anti-discrimination and respect for individual autonomy and choice.

Edition details

• Publisher: Beacon Press
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0807043362
• ISBN 13: 9780807043363
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 224