Privatising humanity

How our essential human needs became financial assets

Kate Bayliss

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Year: 2026
• Print ISBN:
  9781526182982
  9781526182999
• eBook ISBN:
  9781526182975
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Pharmaceutical, Biotechnology & Healthcare Industry
• Index: Economics

A powerful exposé of how finance turns our basic human needs into assets.

We have entered a new era of turbo-charged financial extraction. Having amassed huge reserves, global finance capital is seeking out fresh areas for profitable investments. Virtually all aspects of our lives are now targeted by someone seeking to make a profit.

In Privatising humanity, Kate Bayliss shows how wealthy investors, including asset managers, target our essential services. When it comes to investments in these sectors, shareholder profits are funded by us, the end-users and tax-payers who simply wish to meet our basic human needs for water, warmth and shelter. We have no alternative but to pay into these structures that often generate massive returns for investors and dysfunctional systems for society.

Unpacking the details of these processes in three sectors in the UK - water, energy and housing - Bayliss exposes the harmful consequences of this model, which is contributing to deepening inequality.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Preface
• 1: How humanity became an investment opportunity
• 2: Private equity and the financialisation of human needs
• 3: Chronicles of crises in the privatised water supply
• 4: Why did water regulation fail so badly – and who foots the bill?
• 5: The curious workings of the retail and wholesale energy ‘markets’
• 6: Inequality in the energy sector: riches for some and cold homes for others
• 7: Housing inequalities as investment opportunities
• 8: Conclusion: what lessons are to be learned and where do we go from here?
• Appendices
• Abbreviations
• Figures
• Tables
• Acknowledgements
• Notes
• Index