Recent Privatizations in Pakistan and Their Impact

ISHRAT HUSAIN The decade of 1970s in Pakistan witnessed a massive redistribution of national assets from the private owners to the state. The reason underlying the then Government’s thinking for this extremely radical action was that the national wealth was being concentrated in the hands of few families and the rich were getting richer and the poor getting poorer. It was asserted by the proponents of this strategy that the state control over allocation of the resources would promote the best interests of the poor. The intellectual support for this strategy was drawn from the success of the Soviet Union and the socialist economic model practiced in that part of the world.