Whenever I read or hear certain words, I mentally run the other way. I'm referring to words or phrases such as "public private partnership", "reform", and "re-structuring". They all seem like such neutral, even benign sounding words. The ruling One Percent excels at creating such words as one tool in their vast arsenal of indoctrination techniques designed to obtain public consent for policies that usually work against the public's interests and for the private interests of the ruling One Percent.
The author explores the details of PPP programs by examining their operations in Africa under the direction of neoliberal agents. She follows this with a description of a "different type of partnership" as a positive contrast.
...PPPs [public private partnership] are a key vehicle for the advancement of private sector interests and corporatized technology, even while evoking the language of smallholder agriculture. Key to AGRA’s vision, for instance, is the building of ‘partnerships’ across the ‘value chain’. What this means in practice is the conversion of African smallholder farming to a form of high external input agriculture, reliant on the patented seeds and technologies of Monsanto and other transnational corporations.
