Privatization and its discontents : infrastructure, law, and American democracy / Matthew Titolo, West Virginia University College of Law.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Titolo, Matthew, 1967- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Infrastructure (Economics)--Law and legislation--United States--History.

Infrastructure (Economics).

Privatization--Law and legislation--United States--History.

Privatization.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (x, 221 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2023.

Summary:

In Privatization and Its Discontents, Matthew Titolo situates the contemporary debate over infrastructure in the long history of public-private governance in the United States. Titolo begins with Adam Smith's arguments about public works and explores debates over internal improvements in the early republic, moving to the twentieth-century regulatory state and public-interest liberalism that created vast infrastructure programs. While Americans have always agreed that creation and oversight of 'infrastructure' is a proper public function, Titolo demonstrates that public-private governance has been a highly contested practice throughout American history. Public goods are typically provided with both government and private actors involved, resulting in an ideological battle over the proper scope of the government sphere and its relationship to private interests. The course of that debate reveals that 'public' and 'private' have no inherent or natural content. These concepts are instead necessarily political and must be set through socially negotiated compromise.

Contents:

Introduction

Early liberalism, Adam Smith, and the seeds of the infrastructural state

Forging the infrastructural state : 1787-1837

"A wilderness of turnpike gates" : roads & public authority in antebellum America

The panic of 1837, the infrastructure crash, and the rise of public purpose

The ground under our feet : the birth of public utilities

The death of laissez faire & the rise of infrastructure in the Cold War

Conclusion.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 12 Jun 2023).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781108685108

1108685102

9781108692663

1108692664

9781108683456

1108683452