Lewis H. Lapham: In the late '60s and early '70s, it was still possible to associate the word "public" with the common good - public square, public school, public health and so on. And "private" tended to connote selfish greed. Now, the meanings have been reversed. Public is now a synonym for slum, incompetence, corruption and so forth, and private is the source of all things bright and beautiful - private school, private stream, private plane and so on. And so the impulse has been toward plutocracy, and it's celebrated in all of our news media. https://wordsmith.social/protestation/quotes#quote8096