The Privatization of State-Owned Enterprises

In the early 1930s, still reeling from the defeat of World War I, burdened with debt, and struggling to pay reparations to its former enemies, Germany's economy teetered on the brink of collapse. The newly elected National Socialist Party (aka Nazi Party) devised an economic policy where the ownership of nationalized assets, such as banks, railroads..etc were to be transferred from the state to wealthy industrialists. The move was widely discussed by economists and was given the term “Reprivatisierung” which would be translated to English as reprivatization. 

Since then, privatization and reprivatization have been used to describe economic policies in which a government-owned business, operation, or property becomes owned by a private, nongovernment party. Privatization has since become the major prescription in Neo-liberal economics to stimulate growth in a country. This approach gained momentum in the late 20th century, especially in neoliberal economic policies, aiming to enhance efficiency and stimulate economic growth. The World Bank notes that developing countries saw privatizations amounting to US$70 billion in 2006, reflecting the global trend towards privatization.