In the debate about public versus private ownership of infrastructure, one thing is clear: we don’t need predators.

In the 1980s, some free market entrepreneurs argued that we should design policy and society to give free rein for what they called predators – themselves, in other words – to predate.

And then their predatory eyes fell on physical infrastructure.

Having already asset-stripped manufacturing companies, they need fresh blood. And this time we were all the prey.

We depended on adequate government regulation, but predatory thinking infested our governments.

We can fog this with talk of efficiency, innovation, managing public debt and use of private capital, but ‘extractive predation’* is much snappier.

*From Foundational Economy (2022)

See also Hettie O’Brien, The Asset Class: How Private Equity Turned Capitalism Against Itself (2026)