Privatization in The Books Store

A new phase in the international movement to turn back the rising tide of corporate globalization was marked by US protests in Seattle and the triumphs of grassroots activists in Cochabamba, Bolivia. Volumes have been written about the struggle to shut down the World Trade Organization meetings, but little has been documented about the arguably more successful struggle to regain control of Cochabamba’s water supply and kick out the transnational corporation that privatized it.

Cochabamba! Water Rebellion in Bolivia tells this story—the story of the first great victory against corporate globalization in Latin America. Oscar Olivera, a forty-five-year-old machinist, was at the center of the movement that brought tens of thousands of ordinary people to the streets in the Andean city of Cochabamba, Bolivia. Olivera, in collaboration with Tom Lewis, presents the ideas and emotions of a first hand participant in the victorious rebellion and street battles that have inspired activists in social movements around the world.

Cochabamba! explains how the city’s water supply was sold to Aguas del Tunari, a subsidiary of the U.S.-based transnational corporation Bechtel. Water prices subsequently rose astronomically and poverty-strapped Bolivians refused to pay. Olivera explains the process of organizing an opposition movement coalition—the Coordinating Committee for the Defense of Water and Life—and relates the dramatic struggles that eventually defeated the neoliberal privatizers.

Olivera reflects on the themes that emerged as a result of the war over water (rapidly becoming the world’s new oil); the fear and isolation which the Cochabambinos overcame through a spirit of solidarity and mutual aid; and the Bolivian government’s criminalization of social movements as part of U.S. President Bush’s global "war on terrorism." Cochabamba! also discusses the impact of the "water wars" on subsequent battles with trans-national corporations and financial institutions.

Oscar Olivera is the executive secretary of the Cochabamba Federation of Factory Workers and spokesperson for the Coordinating Committee for the Defense of Water and Life. He was awarded the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize in 2001.

Tom Lewis is a professor of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Iowa.

In contrast to government's predominant role in criminal justice today, for many centuries crime control was almost entirely private and community-based. Government police forces, prosecutors, courts, and prisons are all recent historical developments–results of a political and bureaucratic social experiment which, Bruce Benson argues, neither protects the innocent nor dispenses justice.

In this comprehensive and timely book, Benson analyzes the accelerating trend toward privatization in the criminal justice system. In so doing, To Serve and Protect challenges and transcends both liberal and conservative policies that have supported government's pervasive role. With lucidity and rigor, he examines the gamut of private-sector input to criminal justice–from private-sector outsourcing of prisons and corrections, security, arbitration to full "private justice" such as business and community-imposed sanctions and citizen crime prevention. Searching for the most cost-effective methods of reducing crime and protecting civil liberties, Benson weighs the benefits and liabilities of various levels of privatization, offering correctives for the current gridlock that will make criminal justice truly accountable to the citizenry and will simultaneously result in reductions in the unchecked power of government.