we and Rasmussen, 1982, p. 62; emphasis added).
When this prior replacement of competition by regulation had exactly taken place was not clarified. But, by about 1994, Cicchetti and Sepetys (circa.1994a) had produced a monograph on the restructuring of electricity markets throughout the world, away from public and toward private suppliers, with more and not less competition virtually everywhere (Cicchetti and Sepetys, circa. 1994b, 1994c, and 1994d). By 1996, these same authors had moved from their earlier chronicling of the emergence of the theory of increased privatization in places such as Turkey, Peru, and Pakistan, to both theoretical and practical analyses of the consequences of imminently expected increased competitiveness among U.S. electric utilities, most particularly those in California (Cicchetti and Sepetys, 1996).
(There are instant popular press reports of much the same changes taking place in still further countries and other industries: On the day of this writing, USA Today has included one of its aperiodic supplements, called Our World, in which privatization of electric energy plants in Hungary rated a feature article; and energy, telecommunications, railway, and airline privatization proposals were reported under consideration in Botswana, of all places. Yesterday from this typing, C-SPAN covered the House of Representatives( passage of H.R. 2149, the Ocean Shipping Reform Act, essentially a deregulation of shippers and carriers using coastal American ports and a doing away with the Federal Maritime Commission--a rate regulator. A proposed amendment to outlaw secret [private] contracts or conferences on price among carriers was roundly defeated. Privatization has clearly arrived, and is being defended mightily, as an idea.)
Privatization is a re-emerging idea, a public-spirited intellectual attempt to reach for a social goal, reached-toward many times before and not attained: "The standard of living enjo...