When I was growing up, the mail was delivered by the post office, money was printed by the treasury, votes were counted by election officials, wars were fought by the army, prisons were run by departments of correction, law enforcement was conducted by the police force, space exploration was done by NASA, legal disputes were resolved by judges and juries.
Today, these and other traditional governmental functions are being shared among public, private and mixed groups. This growing privatization of what used to be deemed the provenance of the state raises fundamental and rarely discussed questions of constitutional law, political accountability and the nature of our society.
