Grammar Revision: Сложное подлежащее. Модальный глагол “мау ” и его эквивалент “to be allowed to”.

PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SECTORS OF ECONOMY

The forms of ownership are constantly developing. With the development of civilization they changed, the two most important forms of ownership being private and public or state ownership.

The public sector is the part of economic and administrative life that deals with the delivery of goods and services by and for the government, whether national, regional or local/municipal.

Examples of public sector activity range from delivering social security, administering urban planning and organizing national defences.

The organization of the public sector (public ownership) can take several forms, including:

· Direct administration funded through taxation. The delivering organization generally has no specific requirement to meet commercial success criteria, production decisions being determined by government.

· Publicly owned corporations (in some contexts, especially manufacturing, "State-owned enterprises"). They differ from direct administration in that they have greater commercial freedoms and are expected to operate according to commercial criteria, and production decisions are not generally taken by government (although goals may be set for them by government).

· Partial outsourcing (of the scale many businesses do, e.g. for IT services), is considered a public sector model.

State ownership may be very effective as it has certain advantages thanks to its functions and the abilities to perform macroregulation, to form strategy of societal economic development in general and to optimize the structure of national economy.

The justifications for having public ownership are:

a) Political attitudes. Some people maintain that many forms of private ownership should be abolished. They hold the view that the means of production should belong to and be developed for the people as a whole. This particularly applies to the ‘gifts of nature’, such as land itself and natural resources as coal, oil and gas.

b) Basic importance. Certain industries and services are known to be basic, in that everything else depends upon them. All forms of power come in this category. They must be operated for the good of the community and industry generally because everyone would suffer if private owners were allowed to act in their own selfish interests.

c) National security. Certain services must be provided by the state for the safety of the public because it would be dangerous to leave them in private hands. Obviously, the police and the armed forces must be controlled by the government.

d) Where services cannot be profitable. There are many essentials which cannot be provided by private enterprise because they cannot operate at a profit. Therefore, such facilities as health services, state schools, subsidised housing, etc. must be responsibility of public enterprise.

But state ownership is believed to be less effective in most cases than other forms. It is explained by the fact that this form of ownership exists in areas where the market potential is limited and labour motivation is low. Besides these factors low effectiveness of state ownership appears because of elimination of personal responsibility of owner and loss of market orientation.

Predominance of state ownership results in state monopoly which is very harmful for country’s economy and population but very profitable for producer.

Thus only state monopoly is undesirable and state ownership plays an essential role in the economy in the form of national, republican or municipal ownership.

Private ownership is any non-state ownership. Private property includes several things, such as:

1) households as economic units;

2) legal private enterprises;

3) private property or personal savings;

4) illegal private property.

A borderline form is complete outsourcing or contracting out, with a privately owned corporation delivering the entire service on behalf of government. This may be considered a mixture of private sector operations with public ownership of assets, although in some forms the private sector's control and/or risk is so great that the service may no longer be considered part of the public sector. The decision about what are proper matters for the public sector as opposed to the private sector is probably the single most important dividing line among socialist, liberal, conservative, and libertarian political philosophy, with (broadly) socialists preferring greater state inVolvement, libertarians faVoring minimal state inVolvement, and conservatives and liberals faVouring state inVolvement in some aspects of the society but not others.

Vocabulary on the text

ability, n – способность, умение

advantage, n – преимущество; выгода, польза

apply, v, – 1) обращаться (for – за работой, помощью и т.д.; to – к к-л); 2) касаться, относиться; 3) применять, употреблять

attitude, n – позиция, отношение (к ч-л)

belong, v, – принадлежать, относиться (to – к ч-л); быть связанным (to, with, among – с к-л, ч-л)

dangerous, a – опасный, рискованный

elimination, n – исключение

exist, v, – существовать, быть

facility, n – легкость; отсутствие препятствий и помех; pl – возможности, благоприятные условия; pl – оборудование

harmful, a – вредный, пагубный, губительный

justification, n – оправдание

maintain, v, – поддерживать, сохранять

predominance, n – преобладание, господство

profitable, a – прибыльный, выгодный, доходный, полезный

property, n – имущество, собственность

public, a – общественный, государственный

safety, n – безопасность, надежность, сохранность: adv, – в сохранности

saving, n – pl – сбережения

security, n – безопасность, надежность; защита, охрана; уверенность

selfish, a – эгоистичный

suffer, v, – страдать, терпеть, сносить

undesirable, a – нежелательный; неподходящий

Phonetic and lexical exercises