This chapter provides a general, birds-eye overview of public ownership around the world. It demonstrates that public ownership is ubiquitous, and gives a basic snapshot of some of the sectors where it is most commonly deployed. The chapter then focuses specifically on the United States, giving a comprehensive review of the nation’s contemporary experience with public ownership at all levels of governance (from the local to federal), including interesting new developments, areas in which public ownership is expanding, areas in which different forms of public ownership are being considered, and emerging signs of a new political movement developing around public ownership. It is, among others: electric and water utility municipalization; community choice aggregation; the expansion of and political impediments to municipal broadband; public banks and related campaigns; public transit and transit oriented development; publicly owned hotels and convention centres; airports and ports; new forms of public healthcare facilities; sovereign wealth funds in various states; new public-public partnerships; federal land ownership; and federal public enterprises. It also presents a brief history of municipal socialism in the United States, which provides insights into some of the reasons why public ownership remains prevalent in the United States at the local, municipal level.

This chapter begins to look at how public ownership is conceptualized in a variety of alternative system models emanating from the political left. By focusing exclusively on ownership, this chapter is able to compare, contrast, and evaluate alternative system models and approaches in a unique way. Some of the models reviewed include those coming from market socialist, pluralist, and participatory economics traditions. Like previous chapters, this chapter also seeks to highlight sectors and industries that are particularly conducive to public ownership. Specifically, this chapter analyses where, in what form, and for what reason, various alternative system theorists believe public ownership should or could be deployed. The chapter also begins to discuss different possible manifestations of public ownership, including social ownership.

This chapter develops the argument made throughout the book that simply transitioning to public ownership is insufficient from the perspective of moving towards a more equitable, democratic, and sustainable political economy. Rather, public ownership must also be embedded in a process of democratization and decentralization. This chapter discusses various issues related to this process, including worker self-management, community participation and control, different forms of decentralization, the divide between ownership and management in large enterprises, and the implications of understanding ownership as a “bundle of rights.” It concludes by suggesting that the current political economic crisis engulfing much of the world is both extremely dangerous and an important opportunity for transformation. Regarding the former, long-term downward economic, social, and environmental trends are intersecting with new structural changes and contributing to a rapid series of dangerous and destabilizing developments. On the other hand, this unfolding crisis is, and perhaps already has, greatly undermined many of the central claims of the neoliberal consensus that had been seemingly unassailable just a few years earlier. This opens up various new possibilities for the expansion and reconceptualization of public ownership as advocated for in the book.

This chapter integrates the various discussions around public ownership previously presented in the book into a sectoral analysis of the United States economy. Alongside the overview of public ownership in the United States, it represents the book’s most important and original contribution to the field. This chapter draws on real world experience, theoretical and empirical studies, and alternative systemic design to develop a framework in which public ownership is expanded and scaled up from existing levels across a wide variety of economic sectors. The sectors analyzed include: utilities; finance; healthcare; pharmaceuticals & chemicals; transportation; energy; defense; telecommunications & information; manufacturing; agriculture; and retail.

This chapter reviews many of the reasons articulated in favour of public ownership in both theory and practice. It starts by discussing economic rationales like natural monopoly, market failure, revenue generation, and technology transfer, before going on to discuss broader political-economic concerns. The latter includes the role public ownership can play in reducing inequality (with regards to both race and income and wealth); bolstering democracy (both in terms of reducing the domination of corporate and elite interests and asserting democratic control over economic decision-making at all levels); addressing ecological issues (especially climate change and growth); managing automation and technological change; and ensuring transparency and the widespread distribution of information (itself a pre-requisite for genuine democratic participation).

This chapter makes the argument that contrary to conventional economic orthodoxy, as well as popular (mis)understanding, public ownership continues to thrive around the world—including the United States. In many places, especially at the local level, it remains popular and resilient, despite decades of privatization pressure. Moreover, there has been a resurgence of interest in public ownership in recent years, especially in response to the Great Financial Crisis and Recession of the late 2000s (the effects of which are still being acutely felt both economically and politically). This can be seen in, among other things, the commitments to public ownership being made by Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party in the UK. This chapter defines and contextualize public ownership, lay out the goals and structure of the book, and explains why understanding the importance of public ownership is critical in our rapidly changing world.

This chapter directly addresses and confronts the commonly-held belief that public ownership is inherently less economically efficient than private ownership. By conducting an extensive review of the empirical and theoretical literature on this subject, this chapter demonstrates that there is, in fact, no consensus among experts supporting the supposed superiority of private ownership, and in many cases public ownership is as or more efficient once all relevant considerations are taken into account. It also highlights many important economic questions and considerations that are necessary for analysing where and how public ownership might be deployed in any next system beyond corporate capitalism. These include: profits, inequality, different measures of efficiency, employment, social benefit, competition, natural monopoly, the difficulties of comparability, perfect markets, and scale. The chapter further investigates two issues from the economic literature that are especially important to the discussion of public ownership generally— competition and autonomy— and suggests that internal design and external relationships are critical when considering where and how public ownership could or should be scaled up and developed.