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privatization

noun

  1. process of making something private
  2. transferring ownership of a business, enterprise, agency, public service, or public property from the public sector (a government) to the private sector, to a business that operates for profit
L41298 on Wikidata ↗

Wiktionary

Pronunciation: /ˌpɹaɪvɪtaɪˈzeɪʃ(ə)n/ / /ˌpɹaɪvətaɪˈzeɪʃən/

noun

Etymology: Calque of German Privatisierung (with English -ation), derived from Latin prīvātus (“apart from the state; private”), with reference to post-First World War German economic principles. Popularized by Sidney Merlin in 1943, who was aware of the term reprivatization (used in similar contexts), already attested at the time.

  1. The transfer of a company or organization from government to private ownership and control.

    Coordinate term: denationalization

    The party, moreover, facilitates the accumulation of private fortunes and industrial empires by its foremost members and collaborators through ‘privatization’ and other measures, thereby intensifying centralization of economic affairs and government in an increasingly narrow group that may for all practical purposes be termed the national socialist elite.

  2. The rendering of a thought or an idea, as private in scope.

    Questioning the privilege of biology went hand in hand with a challenge to the privatization of the family and the notion that parents own children and may therefore treat them however they choose.