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Democracy and Regulation: How the Public Can Govern Essential Services

Democracy and Regulation: How the Public Can Govern Essential Services

Essential services are being privatised the world over. Whether it’s water, gas, electricity or the phone network, everywhere from Sao Paulo in Brazil to Leeds in the UK is following the US economic model and handing public services over to private companies whose principal interest is raising prices. Yet it’s one of the world’s best kept secrets that Americans pay astonishingly little for high quality public services. Uniquely in the world, every aspect of US regulation is wide open to the public. How is this done and why has this process not taken root elsewhere? How is regulation threatened even in the US? And what power does the public have to ensure that services are regulated along these US lines? This book, based on work for the United Nations International Labour Organisation and written by experts with unrivalled practical experience in utility regulation, is the first step-by-step guide to the way that public services are regulated in the United States. It explains how decisions are made by public debate in a public forum. Profits and investments of private companies are capped, and companies are forced to reduce prices for the poor, fund environmental investments and open themselves to financial inspection. In a world where privatisation has so often led to economic disaster — in Peru, telephone charges increased by 3000%; in Rio de Janeiro, 40% of electricity workers lost their jobs; in Britain water prices rose by 58% — this book is essential reading. Palast, Oppenheim and MacGregor examine what’s right with the traditional American system, why regulation elsewhere has failed, and — most importantly — what can be done to fix it.

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Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful 5.0 out of 5 stars
most important book, November 8, 2008 By  a orvokki (Helsinki, Finland) – See all my reviews
Verified Purchase(What’s this?)
This is a very important book as it describes what is wrong with the marketisation of public utilities and why they need to be strongly
regulated and controlled through democratic institutions and transparent processes.
The neoliberal hegemony managed to untangle the more than a hundred year
legislation on governing competition rules and prices setting in public utilities. Certainly with the new democractic government, we can expect the pendulum to swing back.
As a European it is also important to learn how we adopted from the USA only marketisation without its regulation.
This book is important for me and I am using it all the time in my campaigns.
 
4 of 6 people found the following review helpful 5.0 out of 5 stars
If Greg had anything to do with it…, August 28, 2005 By  Andrea Friedell (Dallas) – See all my reviews
…this book has to be both entertaining and educational. Greg is the writer who educated the educable on what is really going on in Venezuela, what really happened between the Carlisle Group and the Bin Ladens, and how we are being slowly duped by those who work cleverly behind the scenes. Conspiracy, but with facts to back it up. Read it now or forever hold your peace.
 
5.0 out of 5 stars
Five Stars, November 19, 2014 By  Amazon CustomerSee all my reviews
Verified Purchase(What’s this?)
Very good. Thanks.
 
Last modified on Friday, 23 September 2016 17:59

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