ABSTRACT
The temporal context of property relations has also shifted in the experience of the person for whom work formerly meant little immediate cash return, but confidence in pensions and welfare. Privatization in Kazakhstan officially began with the establishment of the State Property Committee in January 1991. The initial moment of privatization illuminated and briefly brought to the fore a range of models of relationality and entitlement. The single right granted by mass privatization – that to dividends or a share of the enterprise’s profit – was a meaningless right with the collapse of the Investment Funds, for the investment certificates became nothing more than empty signs lacking a referent. The privatization chief admitted that quite a few enterprises ended up with a negative value before future profits were calculated – leading to wonder about profit estimations, since surprisingly few enterprises officially ended up with a negative value.
