The Open Society Institute hosted a panel discussion to mark the publication of The Fox in the Henhouse: How Privatization Threatens Democracy (Berrett-Koehler Publishers), by Si Kahn and Elizabeth Minnich.
Privatization is one of the most important political and economic developments of our time, affecting virtually every person and state in the world. Does privatization serve the public good? Can it work as a healthy partnership between economic and political forces? Or is it a payoff to a set of powerful corporations intent on taking over government and establishing a "private profit culture," in which the bottom line is the measure of all things?
Elizabeth Minnich, Senior Fellow at the Association of American Colleges and Universities, moderated a conversation with:
- Troy Duster, Professor of Sociology and Director of the Institute for the History of the Production of Knowledge at New York University;
- Si Kahn, Executive Director, Grassroots Leadership;
- Esther Kingston-Mann, Professor of History, Roy J. Zuckerberg Endowed Chair, University of Massachusetts, Boston.