In Privatization and Its Discontents, Matthew Titolo situates the contemporary debate over infrastructure in the long history of public–private governance in the United States. Titolo begins with Adam Smith's arguments about public works and explores debates over internal improvements in the early republic, moving to the twentieth-century regulatory state and public-interest liberalism that created vast infrastructure programs. While Americans have always agreed that creation and oversight of 'infrastructure' is a proper public function, Titolo demonstrates that public–private governance has been a highly contested practice throughout American history. Public goods are typically provided with both government and private actors involved, resulting in an ideological battle over the proper scope of the government sphere and its relationship to private interests. The course of that debate reveals that 'public' and 'private' have no inherent or natural content. These concepts are instead necessarily political and must be set through socially negotiated compromise.

‘If you think that only economic historians and historians of technology could be interested in railroads, the telegraph, canals, and turnpikes, this book will make you think again. Matthew Titolo shows how ideas about public support for private enterprise reflected and shaped competing visions of the well-ordered society in the United States. His provocative reflections on the way the very word ‘infrastructure’ has been used, particularly during and after the Cold War, are worth the price of admission.’

Mark Tushnet - William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law emeritus, Harvard Law School

‘Professor Titolo has written a provocative and penetrating historical analysis of the political development of American infrastructure that transcends the myth of a nation founded on laissez-faire principles. When we talk of crumbling infrastructure, we mean more than collapsing bridges and pitted roads. We mean a society that is crumbling, that can no longer sustain itself. Building infrastructure therefore requires political negotiations not only between public and private entities but also about the definition of public and private spheres.’

Stephen Feldman - Jerry W. Housel/Carl F. Arnold Distinguished Professor of Law, University of Wyoming

‘This is a truly fantastic and much-needed book. Matthew Titolo gives us a theoretically sophisticated and empirically rich masterpiece of economic and legal history. Titolo produces muscular scholarship astride exhaustively dense footnoted sourcing; and yet, his writing is eloquent and lively. In these pages, primary documents not only break new historical ground, they also bring the story to life. In both form and content, Privatization and its Discontents is unbeatable.’

Christian Parenti - Professor, John Jay College, CUNY and author of Radical Hamilton

‘The subject and problem of infrastructure - newly discussed in law under rubrics like networks, platforms, and utilities - has never been more interesting, salient, and urgent. In this context, Matthew Titolo's sweeping new interdisciplinary history could not be more welcome. Ranging from Adam Smith's theories of police and public works to Joe Biden's Infrastructure, Investments, and Jobs Act, Privatization and Its Discontents provides an invaluable interpretive roadmap to the central questions, frameworks, and transformations that have long preoccupied this all-important field of public-private governance. Titolo's synthetic history is an indispensable resource for re-thinking infrastructure in the 21st century.’

William J. Novak - Charles F. and Edith J. Clyne Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School