This book is the first in-depth analysis of the impact of public utility privatization on ordinary consumers. John Ernst traces the history of energy and water privatization and documents the community and consumer sectors' various attempts to influence the structure of privatization and regulation. He provides a wealth of data on the energy and water utilities over the first period of privatization and shows that the benefits and costs of privatization have not been shared equally.

Low income consumers have been particularly adversely affected and the regressive outcomes of privatization have undercut the gains that domestic consumers have made in some areas of service provision.

Concluding with an overview of the British experiment of energy and water privatization the author argues that the privatization settlements reached by successive Conservative governments with the privatized utility companies are seriously flawed, and that the British model of privatization is inappropriate to the domain of essential public utility services.