Sharon Beder has an important and controversial story to tell in "Power Play," her new book on electricity privatization from Edison to Enron.
Her thesis is that electricity privatization has always been a confidence game. Corporations have convinced the public and elected officials that public control of electricity is inefficient, uneconomic, and even un-American. If the public and the government aren't convinced, the electricity companies just buy them. Once in control, the corporations manipulate markets, waste resources, and make a… more