UKC

Can anyone recommend a well-balanced book that evaluates the successes and failures of past privatisations? I see only failure, as exemplified in the disasters of prisons, detention centres and the probation service, for instance. No doubt others would be quick to disagree - and I suspect my ideological bias will be preventing me considering the evidence fairly. Hence this request. I'd prefer a proper book by a proper economist writing for the general reader, but if there are good podcasts etc, then so be it.

Don't torment yourself. There's a book called 'Plundering the Public Sector' which my eldest son gave me; I couldn't read more than a few pages.

If you are a shareholder then privatisation is often a success, if you're not it's usually a disaster...

If you want science forget it - this is economics!

James Meek’s “Private Island. Why Britain Now Belongs to Someone Else” is very good, but not exactly the case for the defence. 

And though I haven’t read it, “On the Wrong Line: How Ideology and Incompetence Wrecked Britain's Railways” by Christian Wolmar might be worth a look, as I think he’s pretty well informed. 

For energy privatisation, Dieter Helm’s “Energy, the State, and the Market: British Energy Policy since 1979” is the definitive reference from the uks leading energy economist.