THE PROGRESS of privatization, which has spread from Margaret Thatcher's Britain to at least a dozen other countries [see also "From Washington Straight," p. 24], is enough to confound those Right-pessimists and Left-optimists who thought that statism was a clock that ticked remorselessly forward. Now on the block, or recently sold, are such prizes as the Japanese telephone, railway, and tobacco monopolies; the Spanish national automaker (being sold to Volkswagen); airlines in Britain, Japan, Singapore, and Thailand; hotels in Mexico, Spain, and the Philippines; television ...

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