The Corporation

The “public sphere, which exists to greater and lesser degrees in all modern nations, is now under attack” (113). Many of government’s functions are being privatized, including “utilities, police, fire and emergency services, day care centers, welfare services […] prisons, airports, health care […] public parks, and highways” (113).

A case in point is Edison Schools, “the largest education management organization (EMO) in the United States, with 133 schools and 74,000 students” that it manages for local school districts. The EMO industry is growing, and in 2001 Edison backer Michael Moe estimates that “10 percent of the $800 billion education industry will be run by for-profit corporations in ten years’ time” (114). It’s unclear, though, that for-profit school managers perform better than their public counterparts. When Edison runs into financial difficulties, it cuts back sharply on services and even proposes that students perform unpaid labor.

Promotors believe the profit motive will improve services in education and elsewhere, but “privatization is flawed as a general and long-term solution to society’s problems” (117) because profit isn’t the only guide for people’s behavior and because “corporations are legally required always to put their own interests above everyone else’s” (118).

Corporations have invaded areas in people’s lives previously exempt from commercialism.