7 - The Moral Neutrality of Privatization as Such

Summary

The debate over the privatization of government services usually concerns practical considerations like cost and quality. This is not to say that moral questions are absent: in the current controversy over private prisons, for instance, even a supposedly “practical” factor like the “quality” of a prison includes many morally relevant features – like whether private prison firms are more likely to overcrowd their prisons or skimp on necessities like medical care, whether private correctional officers are more likely to abuse prisoners, and whether inter-inmate violence is more likely at a private prison.