We have already looked in to the economic meaning of privatisation:
They were stuck as to how to find profitable activities for the accumulated funds. Before they have sold private industries to the state for they were not that profitable anymore or indeed it was becoming impossible to run those industries. Now things have changed. They have accumulated so much funds and they cannot find any area of activity that is profitable for all those accumulated funds. Thus what were sold to the state have been privatised again. Fun and games as they say.
We have also referred to the political meaning of privatisation:
It was becoming difficult to manage the state owned conglomerates using their bureaucrats. They had become too self-centred and self-conceited. They could not be bothered to apply the technical and finantial measures needed. After all it was not their property was it…so they were made their property and the problem was solved!
But we did not look in to another and more important aspect of the politics of privatisation. This is to do with “security”, with war making!
If you make war in another country, or indeed at home, the state is directly responsible from what happens. But if you privatise the internal and external “security” operation, the state is not directly responsible from the operations of the “private” firms. Even when they are employed by the state for internal or external operations, what they do is their responsibility and the trail of responsibility of the state becomes more difficult to follow-and can be made impossible to follow. The private firm can go bankrupt; its directors can “disappear” etc etc.
Examples of these have been seen in Iraq, Afghanistan; Libya etc. Private “internal” security firms are also all around us. In Britain they even manage the prisons and when things are clearly wrong, for example refugees are treated in a way contrary to present laws, it is nothing to do with the state we are told, “it is their fault”! And the firm punishes the wrong doing worker or declares that they will correct such bad things and will not do it again…
The latest development in this regard refers to the sale of arms. It is presently the responsibility of the state as to where the arms are sold and thus how they are used by the states that buy them. The state that sells the arms have to provide the licence. It is thus that all the arms that reach, say armed organisations that are utilised by CIA etc; are armed indirectly. Illegally, through “black ops”, and yet when such arm shipments are huge, as they have to be these days, say to Syria, a paper trail leading to USA-CIA becomes relatively easy to find by those who investigate these things. It appears the Balkans Investigative Reporters Network (BIRN) have done this and traced all sorts of arms shipments that has gone to Syria right back to CIA.
It is thus that now the Trump administration is “privatising” the licencing of arms sale. It will not be responsibility of the state to licence all arms sales; commerce department will now handle sale of arms, just like sale of any goods to private persons and firms. Thus it will have nothing to do with the state, or even if they do, it will be like, “oh dear me, how could you” etc.
This is another point one must consider regarding privatisation.
This is also a declaration of the fact that at the stage we are in, responsibility of the state for all things, and thus the responsibility of the class in charge of the state for all things, is clear to all. It is brought to the attention of all. And people do not want their state to oppress them, and people do not want their state to kill people all over the world. It is thus that the actions of the state is becoming unreasonable in the eyes of the people being ruled by the state. It is thus that they are resorting to privatisation of all sorts of state’s responsibilities.
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It is thus that as Hegel said, what is unreasonable may exist; but it is no longer real.
This is the real meaning of privatisation of “internal and external security operations”, as well as all activities which are the responsibility of the state be it health or housing and social security, be it energy and industry and agriculture.
https://www.rt.com/op-edge/404311-us-pentagon-arms-exports-syria/