Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Privatization = Better World

There was an interesting news clip on TV awhile ago on privatization and how it benefits the world. In essence, privatization equal ownership, ownership equals taking care of whatever it is being owned. Ultimately, this creates a sense of responsibility for the object being owned, and thus a better world. Students of this high school were given one cup of Hershey's Kisses that "reproduce." For each Kiss left, you get one more at the end of each "round." In the first part of the experiment, each student group had one cup and told to take freely from the cup. In the end of the first part, there were no Kisses left or sometimes one or two--generally not sustainable. In the second part, a student in a group was given their own cup and told to take as many Kisses as they want and to give them away, half of the Kisses were left in the cups--sustainable. The point of this exercise was that privatization helps because people/owners take better care of something they own, rather than land owned by a group or the public. I thought it was pretty interesting. What do you think? Should more parks and public places be owned by a private group?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Government has gotten too big, because we already own the public place. Most people to do not see the connection between their tax dollars and how it is spent. It is the government's and not mine, but who is the government?

freedumb said...

Yeah, I wonder if the average tax payer even cares where their money goes...

Even if they knew their money paid for a park, I don't think it would change the general attitude of, "it's not mine, so why should I pick up trash...or take care of the basketball courts...or whatever it is..."

Anonymous said...

The point of this exercise was that privatization helps because people/owners take better care of something they own, rather than land owned by a group or the public.

Except this thesis has been contradicted by a lot of real-life, high-stakes examples. These sorts of experiments -- people in a lab situation, no real effect on their lives -- have faced a lot of criticism in the philosophy of science literature, for good reason IMO.