Sidi,
    Correct me if I get you wrong, but it seems to me that despite the
streaks of deregulation that run through and through your discourse, there is
a niggling albeit tentative thesis that: there should be some sort of
indigenous participation [what I would rather call stakeholder market
economy] in the whole privatisation programme inorder to avoid alienation of
the people on whose behalf it[privatization] is intended?
This it seems to me to lead to the classical problem of the philosophy of
economics; the planning, executions and moral imperative of economic
policies/plans. The stakeholder market economy or as you put it, indigenous
participation, would virtually call for more equality and consequently more
regulation; gov't intervention to right the wrongs of the market. This
egalitarian value is in contradiction with the liberal economics of the free
market that your discourse centred on. How would you reconcile these
contradictions [or should i be determinist and call it irreconcilable values;
that of liberty and equality] that are inherent in your central theme of
privatisation?
    in your posting you didn't go far enough on the economic political
framework a privatisation programme would take. what should be the
preconditions and ensuing prevailing circumstances for a privatisation agenda
to flourish as Eastern Europe and Southern America are clearly enjoying? i
pose this question because this whole thing reminds me of the Russian
experience when experts of the West mainly from the London School of
Economics [LSE] went to advise the new Russian market reformers in the early
90's. This privatisation program was completely derailed by the lack of an
economic political frame work that was needed to bolster the necessary milieu
for a viable market economy. As we continue to see, the tax base of the
Russian State continues to dwindle and deregulation stretched to unheard of
lengths complemented by an incoherent gov't economic philosophy that has
rendered the Russian economy virtually a bandit/Mafiosi economy the State
almost on the verge of bankruptcy. This is all thanks largely to a decayed
economic political framework that was not given much thought when Russia
embarked on it's market economy reforms at the urging of the Western gov'ts
and institutions like LSE and The Bretton Wood Institutions.
    In conclusion, as you noted with succinct bluntness, privatisation
shouldn't be perceived as an end like Aid and grants, but means to a
progressive and developed society. This is a view that despite all the noise
coming from the IMF, World Bank et al. don't take very seriously like our
equally naive gov'ts.
    I await your kind response.
Hamjatta Kanteh

hkanteh

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