the.com/private sector
The economy's engine room: profit-driven, customer-terrified, allergic to committee meetings.
means The part of the economy made up of businesses owned and run by private individuals or companies rather than the government, operating to make a profit.
from Built from 'private' (Latin privatus, 'withdrawn from public life, belonging to oneself') and 'sector' (Latin sector, 'a cutter,' from secare 'to cut' — originally a geometry term for a pie-slice wedge cut from a circle). Economists in the 20th century borrowed 'sector' to carve the economy into slices — public, private, voluntary — and the private slice kept the name that once meant simply 'not the state's business.'
- core motive
- profit, not mandate, decides what gets built
- job security
- exactly as secure as last quarter's earnings
- public sector rival
- pays more, moves faster, folds easier
- global footprint
- employs roughly 90 percent of world's workers