Over the past decades, the issue of federal government downsizing and funding ability shortage has become one of the most challenging aspects of managing state institutions. While some researchers claim the following tendency to be caused by the lack of proper resource allocation pattern in the governmental framework, others are trying to find the root of the issue in socio-cultural concerns of the given state (Jones, 2016). Hence, in order to address the situation, many inherent state facilities like correctional institutions, educational establishments, and healthcare are rapidly privatized. Considering the fact that the following process has already become inevitable regardless of state, it is of paramount importance to define both positive and negative implications of public sector privatization.
To begin with, the advantages of privatization should be outlined concerning the processes of privatizing correctional facilities and education. Hence, the notion of private correctional facilities, i.e., prisons, has become a rapidly developing endeavor over the past decades due to the issue of the government’s inability to allocate enough resources to sustain the prison population across the state, leading to the prison’s overcrowding and, sometimes, famine. As a result, private sectors decided to invest finances in the correctional facilities’ support, increasing the prisons’ capacity (Brim, 2018). The following issue is also applicable to the governmental support of the higher educational establishment and military aircraft, as the limited abilities of the downsized governments inevitably lead to the need for external intervention. Hence, the advantages of the following endeavors may be listed as follows:
- Financial advantage. Considering the financial abilities of most state governments, it would be safe to assume that the authorities’ responsibility obtains a wide of aspects, which are to be listed according to their priority for the state. Hence, the process of dealing with correctional facilities and education may be listed at the end of the agenda with a lack of financial resources available to resolve the problems. The private sector, on the other hand, is capable of building an agile financial framework that addresses the issues in a timely manner.
- Faster decision-making processes. As far as the government is concerned, all the financial incentives and resource allocation have a rigid pattern of ratification filled with bureaucratic endeavors that require much time to be approved. As a result, the financial issues that require immediate financial intervention are to be postponed in order to be legally ratified by all the necessary governmental bodies. The private sector, in its turn, has the ability to make decisions immediately once an intervention is needed, which rapidly facilitates the overall response rate.
- A higher number of workplaces available. When taking into account the scope of the private sector on the national level, it becomes evident that it obtains a major advantage in terms of creating new facilities in order to address the issue of overcrowding and poor service quality. As a result, the private sector ensures the creation of many new workplaces for fellow residents, increasing the overall life quality rate and economy within the state.
Considering the aforementioned points, it may be concluded that the process of privatization of inherently public endeavors has many advantages for the state economy and society as a whole. However, as far as disadvantages are concerned, there is one yet extremely important drawback of privatization. All the institutions that were primarily considered as public play a significant role in terms of socio-cultural development of the state, whereas private institutions in the sector tend to limit the notion of democracy within the context (Rizvi, 2016). For example, the major issue with private institutions is the fact that the owners have a right to choose whether a person is able to have access to the facility, whereas the institutions concerned are to be accessible for fellow residents by their constitutional rights. Hence, in order to resolve the ongoing debate, a symbiosis in the collaboration between public and private sectors is to be established, taking into consideration both economy and democracy.
References
Brim, I. (2018). The privatization of a public industry: a study on private prisons in the united states and the effects on prisoners. Senior Independent Study Theses, 7882.
Jones, V. D. (2016). Downsizing the federal government: Management of public sector workforce reductions: management of public sector workforce reductions. Routledge.
Rizvi, F. (2016). Privatization in education: Trends and consequences. Education Research and Foresight: Working Papers, no. 18, 1-12.
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