Very simply put this seemingly benign term refers to a policy/program for eliminating the role of government in every human endeavor that has the potential to be “privatized,” meaning capable of being converted into capitalist profit making ventures by big business. So, for example, structural adjustment advocates are against the idea of governments providing even such basic services to their citizenry as water supply, or operating prisons, or providing education because they can all be provided by private entities, that is businesses. The rationale behind this approach is that, supposedly, capitalist enterprises are not only more efficient than the government in providing these services, but that they would also help to reduce the tax burden. The foolishness of this kind of thinking is highlighted by the fact that not all human needs can be adequately provided for on the basis of the profit motive—that is why we have governments in the first place—and that “efficiency” among corporate capitalist monopolies when it comes to captive markets is simply measured by, to all intents and purposes, how much they can “steal” through both legal and extra-legal means without getting caught. Notice also that the current economic policies being pursued by Western countries (such as the United States, one of the foremost champions of structural adjustment) has been, most ironically (or perhaps most hypocritically) an almost complete repudiation, in effect, of this policy as they have moved to dramatically and directly intervene in the economy by means of various “economic stimulus/bail-out-the-crooks” strategies aimed at trying to rescue their economies from going into complete free fall!