The article presents and discusses three senses of the term «privatization» with reference to the welfare system: one regarding finance mechanisms, one the role of intermediate bodies, and one the supply of services. The first option – more or less extensive replacement of the present national insurance systems with private insurance – actually worsens the macroeconomic sustainability of expenditure and has negative implications for the aims of welfare. The second sense – a Big society based on transferring from the state to intermediate bodies responsibility for certain measures of social policy – foreshadows a pre-modern idea of citizenship, broken up by group or category membership. The article concludes by placing the third sense in the framework of public control of the system that exploits the role of the market and private initiative in the supply of services, to improve efficiency and satisfy needs.only subscribers can see the full article