Film Review: The Big Sellout

Readers:

I am in Washington this week (more on that later) and marveling about how deep a crisis it takes for some people to learn a basic fact of economics -- raw faith in a marketplace with limited public rules is a recipe for disaster. There is a sad justice in this. It was this city that pushed developing countries, like Bolivia, so hard to toe the line on "unfettered markets will set you free." And now those chickens have come home to roost and even the mighty giant Citicorp has come here hat in hand begging for public cash. So it looks like corporate America only wants unfettered markets when things go as they hoped, but wants government intervention to be massive when they screw up. I wish I could get that deal, and so do many other Americans.

It turns out that the sad history of market fundamentalism in Latin America was a preview of events to come in the U.S., tales of am economic theology run amok.

In this post our intrepid Lily Whitesell offers up a brief review of a recent film from California Newsreel, The Big Sellout, which documents the Cochabamba Water Revolt as well as three other cases where privatization hasn't worked. Here is her review.

Jim Shultz

The Big Sellout

The Big Sellout begins by introducing its viewers to stories of how privatization has affected real people’s lives across the globe. A middle aged mother in the Philippines frantically tries to find money for a twice-a-week kidney dialysis that her quiet teenage son needs to live. After 20,000 families in South Africa lose their electricity in a single month, the community decides to take matters into their own hands. Railway train drivers in Great Britain who used to boast the most efficient system in Europe now fear that the poorly maintained tracks could cost them their lives.

The documentary follows hospitals in the Philippines, electricity in South Africa, trains in Great Britain, and water in Cochabamba, which were all privatized in the 1980s and 1990s. In interviews with Joseph Stiglitz, former Chief Economist of the World Bank, it explains how privatization came to be the prevailing doctrine in many of the industrialized countries of the world, and how it was exported to developing countries through the World Bank and IMF, promising more efficient systems, greater investment, and better management.

The Big Sellout is a solid introduction to both how private companies have failed to meet those promises, and a deeper look at what is lost when basic services are privatized without being regulated. In Great Britain, the train system has lost its long-range vision, planning, and basic maintenance. The results have been severe job cuts, massive train delays, and a higher incidence of train crashes and deaths on the rails. In the Philippines and South Africa, the privatized health system and electricity company lost the goal of providing services for people in favor of profits and a better bottom line. Those unable to pay have had no option but to live without electricity and to let loved ones die without proper treatment.

Interviews with a spokesperson from the World Bank and a short promotional video from the IMF, juxtaposed with the four stories of privatization failures, reveal just how removed those backing privatization can be from the communities their policies affect. After a series deadly train crashes in Great Britain, the maintenance of the railway tracks was put back under public control. However, nations like the Philippines, South Africa, and Bolivia have had strict conditions written into their loans from the World Bank and the IMF, taking away the ability of regular citizens to have a say in what is in public hands and what is privatized.

At the same time, The Big Sellout brings to light stories of people fighting back from the ground up. In South Africa, a community group turns the lights back on for hundreds of houses that will never have the money to pay electricity costs. In Great Britain, unions are organizing to prevent further cuts. In the end, the film looks to Cochabamba's struggle against Bechtel for inspiration and hope in fighting other failed privatizations.

The film provides solid stories from around the world of when privatization has not worked for people – and how groups around the world have used both creative and traditional ways to combat policies imposed from above or abroad. California Newsreel’s efforts to bring these stories into the public eye are extremely useful to both informing a broader audience as well as inspiring people to take action in the face of injustice.

Written by Lily Whitesell