The
study of private initiative, private enterprise, and the ideology of privatization using Sovietological methods. Privatology examines how “private” is constructed as superior to “public” regardless of outcomes, how private
power is
made invisible while public
power is scrutinized, and how the rhetoric of entrepreneurship masks rent‑seeking and monopoly. It studies the role of private foundations, consultancies, and lobbying firms as the hidden infrastructure of policy‑making. Privatology reveals that the “private sector” is as opaque, hierarchical, and self‑serving as any state bureaucracy.
Example: “Her privatology of charter schools showed that ‘parental
choice’ rhetoric disguised a system of cherry‑picking students,
union‑busting, and public subsidy for private profit—privatization as ideology, not
evidence.”