The Fox in the Henhouse: - How Privitization Threatens Democracy

Informationen zum Autor Si kahn has been organizing against privatization for the past ten years. The nonprofit organization he founded and directs, Grassroots Leadership, works to abolish for-profit private prisons, jails, and detention centers as a step toward establishing a system of justice that is truly just and humane. Si began his social justice career forty years ago with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the student wing of the southern civil rights movement. In the 1970s he worked with the United Mine Workers of America on the Brookside strike in Harlan County, Kentucky, and with the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union on the J. P. Stevens campaign. Elizabeth minnich has been thinking, speaking, and writing about privatization, inclusiveness, and excellence in education true to the values of democracy for more than thirty years. She has spoken and consulted at colleges, universities, philanthropic foundations, and academic professional associations throughout the United States and abroad. Klappentext The Fox in the Henhouse takes an in-depth look at the growing practice of privatization-what it is, what it does to our society, and how we can stop it. Privatisation is one of the most important political and economic developments of our time, affecting virtually every person and state in the world. The purpose of The Fox in the Henhouse is to present, in clear, direct terms, an analysis of privatisation that will help people understand what is happening to them and what they can do about it. It gives people on all sides of many different privatisation struggles (over hospitals, schools, sanitation, water, Social Security, the military, public lands, the postal service, national parks, prisons) the arguments that have been used to place privatization at the center of the corporate agenda and to dominate the public debate. It also provides a historical framework that allows readers to center their thinking in questions of what it means to build a democratic society. And it provides the counter-arguments that people need both to argue and to fight back. Zusammenfassung An activist and a philosopher discuss how privatization harms society and how we can challenge it. Privatization has been on the right-wing agenda for years. Health care, schools, Social Security, public lands, the military, prisons—all are considered fair game. Through stories, analysis, impassioned argument—even song lyrics—Si Kahn and Elizabeth Minnich show that corporations are, by their very nature, unable to fulfill effectively what have traditionally been the responsibilities of the government. They make a powerful case that the market is not the measure of all things, and that a vital public sector is an indispensable component of a healthy democracy. “If you care about your children’s education, the quality of the air you breathe and the water you drink, affordable health care or Social Security, you need to read The Fox in the Henhouse …. Kahn and Minnich have given us a blueprint of how to organize now and protect our country and our future.” —Jan Schakowsky, U.S. House of Representatives “ The Fox in the Henhouse …provides analytic tools for challenging corporate America’s sale of democracy, honors legacies of resistance, and moves us to a vision of hope and action challenging the privatization of our lives and dreams.” —Chandra Talpade Mohanty, educator and author of Feminism Without Borders “Inspiring to read, this book will be of great value to organizers, activists, and citizens of conscience…. Nothing less than our democracy is at stake when extremists want to roll back our hard-earned rights. [This book] offers a spirited blueprint for all citizens who care about renewing America’s best and most generous traditions.” —Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor, The Nation Inhaltsverzeichnis ...

List of contents

Foreword by Troy Duster
Foreword by Amy Goodman
Preface: Who We Are, Why We Care
Introduction: A Road Map

PART I Public, It s Ours; Private, It s Theirs
Chapter 1 Morning in America ?
Chapter 2 Drawing the Line: Private Versus Public Goods
Chapter 3 Introducing Corporations
Chapter 4 Forms of Privatization

PART II Privatization at Work
A Worst-Case Scenario: For-Profit Private Prisons
Chapter 6 Tracking and Backtracking Politicians
Chapter 7 Keep the Paying Guests Coming: Filling Up the Prisons
Chapter 8 We Love This Problem: Lives for Sale
Chapter 9 Don t Fence Me In: Private Walls and Public Rights
Chapter 10 Privatizing Against Equality
Chapter 11 Minds for Sale
Chapter 12 Privatizing Social Security: A Case Study of Ideology, Strategy, Tactics

PART III The Great Divide
Chapter 13 The Two Cultures of the Twenty-First Century
Chapter 14 Appreciating the Public Sector
Chapter 15 A Fable, and a Fabulous True Story
Chapter 16 An Offer No Corporation Could Refuse

PART IV Freedom, Revolution, Progress
Chapter 17 The American Dream Always at Risk
Chapter 18 Differing Visions, Conflicting Values
Chapter 19 Trickling Down into the 1980s and 1990s
Chapter 20 Methods That Affect Our Lives
Chapter 21 Resistant Strengths
Afterword: Returning Home, Remembering Meanings of Freedom
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Resources
About the Authors

Report

Like this excellent and timely book says, these days the foxes aren t just guarding the henhouse they re on the inside. Unless we want to be devoured by the corporate foxes, we chickens better get organized. This book is a great place to start.
Jim Hightower, author of the New York Times bestseller Thieves in High Places

"If you care about your children's education, the quality of the air you breathe and the water you drink, affordable health care or Social Security, you need to read The Fox in the Henhouse . Kahn and Minnich have given us a blueprint of how to organize now to protect our country and our future."
Jan Schakowsky, U.S. House of Representatives

Few books manage to do what The Fox in the Henhouse does. It provides analytic tools for challenging corporate America's sale of democracy, honors legacies of resistance, and moves us to a vision of hope and action challenging the privatization of our lives and dreams."
Chandra Talpade Mohanty, educator and author of Feminism Without Borders

"Inspiring to read, this book will be of great value to organizers, activists, and citizens of conscience...Nothing less than our democracy is at stake when extremists want to roll back our hard-earned rights. It offers a spirited blueprint for all citizens who care about renewing America's best and most generous traditions."
Katrina vanden Heuvel, Editor, The Nation

Product details

• Authors: Si Kahn, Elizabeth Minnich, Elizabeth K. Minnich
• Publisher: Berrett Koehler Publishers
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 16.10.2005
• EAN: 9781576753378
• ISBN: 978-1-57675-337-8
• No. of pages: 320
• Dimensions: 139 mm x 214 mm x 19 mm
• Series: BK Currents; Bk Currents
• Subjects: Social sciences, law, business > Business; Kapitalismus, Wirtschaftspolitik, politische Ökonomie, BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Economic Conditions, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Public Policy / Economic Policy, Business / Economics / Finance, BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Free Enterprise