Privatization

Privatization is defined by being the process wherein socially owned or public assets such as land, infrastructure and enterprises are sold to private investors.

The earliest examples of privatization of state property have variously been traced to Britain's privatization of its steel industry in the 1950s, partial privatizations in the Federal Republic of Germany in the 1950s and 60s, or Chile in the 1970s and the United Kingdom in the 1980s under Augusto Pinochet and Margaret Thatcher. However, the earliest case of mass privatization of state property actually occurred in Nazi Germany. The English word "privatization" is sometimes mistakenly dated back to 1969, although it was actually derived from the earlier "reprivatization," a translation of the German "Reprivatisierung" dating back to the 1930s.