ABSTRACT
After three decades of privatization the world is witnessing a significant growth in state-owned enterprises (SOEs). This shift has been met with excitement from supporters of public ownership in general, but disdain from critics who see state-ownership as a drag on market economies. Less well known are Marxist criticisms of SOEs, which tend to see state-owned enterprises as captured by market interests while at the same time dampening pressures for change from below with a façade of public ownership that serves to obscure the underlying contradictions and inequities of capital accumulation. In practice, public ownership is more nuanced and complex than this synopsis would suggest, but there are underlying constraints to state ownership in a global market economy that are often overlooked by those seeking ‘public’ fixes to a world of growing inequality. The focus of this chapter is on state-owned and state-operated essential services such as water, electricity, transportation and health. It begins with a theoretical review of Marxist critiques of capitalist state forms, followed by an empirical typology of actually-existing service-oriented SOE trends in market economies. The intent is not to dismiss the notion of state-owned services but to insist on the need for a closer understanding of both the opportunities and the limitations of market-based state enterprises if we are to advance SOEs as a viable alternative to privatization.
