ABSTRACT
Privatisation in Italy is one of those economic phenomena which surprise for their suddenness and for the strength of the swing which took place from a view which favoured a widespread public intervention in the economy, in the form of state ownership, as an effective instrument of industrial policy, to one in which the market and private property are seen as the panacea to all inefficiencies and economic failures.2 All the parties in the political arena, from left to right, with the notable exception of the neo-communists of Rifondazione, hold the view, today, that a profound process of privatisation is a desirable thing for the country.
