Privatization or Economic Democracy?
Channel: Partners for Dignity & Rights
Date: 2022-03-08

New Social Contract Webinar Series: Privatization or Economic Democracy?

For 50 years, government, public goods, and our mutual interdependence have been under assault by profiteers. They cook up stories about "efficiency" in think tanks, peddle myths in the media, and stoke racist fears in order to bend public policy into an instrument for private profit. This isn't just a matter of money: it's also about democracy and power. In every sector of our economy from public health to social media, corporations, private equity firms and other profiteers hold enormous power over our lives, and they're completely unaccountable. But the tide may be turning. People's movements are decrying private control over our health care, housing, water, and other public goods, and are building new models of public, community and worker control. 

On February 22, 2022, these speakers discussed the half-century march toward privatized control and potential pathways to a just, democratic economy:

Donald Cohen, In the Public Interest, and co-author of The Privatization of Everything: How the Plunder of Public Goods Transformed America and How We Can Fight Back.
Amy Fried, University of Maine, and co-author of At War with Government: How Conservatives Weaponized Distrust from Goldwater to Trump.
Kenyon Farrow, Managing Director, Advocacy & Organizing, PrEP4All; former Co-Executive Director of Partners for Dignity & Rights.
Moderator: Ben Palmquist, Partners for Dignity & Rights.

BIOS:
Donald Cohen is the founder and executive director of In the Public Interest, a national resource and policy center on privatization and responsible contracting. Donald is a founding board member of the Partnership for Working Families. He is currently on the board of the Ballot Initiatives Strategy Center. His opinion pieces and articles have appeared in the New York Times, Reuters, the Los Angeles Times, The San Diego Union-Tribune, The New York Daily News, The New Republic, and other online and print outlets.
Twitter: @donaldrcohen12

Amy Fried is the John Mitchell Nickerson Professor of Political Science at the University of Maine. Prof. Fried’s research primarily concerns the history and political uses of public opinion in the United States. Fried’s most recent scholarly book, At War With Government: How Conservatives Weaponized Distrust from Goldwater to Trump, is co-authored with Douglas B. Harris and was published by Columbia University Press in 2021. Fried is also the author of Pathways to Polling: Crisis, Cooperation, and the Making of Public Opinion Professions (Routledge Press, 2012), Muffled Echoes: Oliver North and the Politics of Public Opinion (Columbia University Press, 1997) and many shorter works in scholarly edited volumes and journals.
Twitter: @asfried
Blog: https://pollways.bdnblogs.com

Kenyon Farrow is a writer, editor, and strategist. His expertise is in public health, health care, social safety net and social justice. Kenyon has coordinated campaigns large and small, local, national, and global on issues related to criminalization/mass imprisonment, homelessness, and LGBT rights. He is a sought after speaker, editor and group facilitator for social justice campaigns and organizations. Since June 2021, Kenyon has served as managing director of advocacy & organizing of PrEP4All―a health advocacy and equity organization dedicated to eradicating HIV throughout the United States.
Twitter: @kenyonfarrow
Website: kenyonfarrow.com
Youtube: youtube.com/channel/UCyDEnwsDDw9Fxkn91lJaghQ