Take the privatizing of state-controlled industries, an effort that has targeted a wide range of enterprises and was started under President Hashemi Rafsanjani, but sped up seriously in the last year under Mr. Khatami.
Even when Brazil privatized $100 billion of state enterprises in the 1990s, the government kept majority control over Petrobras.
Greece agreed to a bailout agreement over the summer, securing international funds in exchange for instituting sweeping reforms, including the restructuring of the social welfare system, cutting pension costs, privatizing a number of state assets and fighting tax evasion.
The government has announced plans to privatize a number of state assets, including the bank VTB, shares in oil companies, hydroelectric dams and shipping lines.
One scheme raised the possibility of Kalamazoo privatizing its state-of-the-art sewer system, built when the city anticipated unlimited growth by the paper mills.
"These are the first steps he needs to take to privatize the state," said State Senator Jon Erpenbach, one of the 14 Democrats.
There was a campaign to educate the masses about economics and the structure of shareholding companies, offering them the role of shareholders of privatized state enterprises.
In 2003, in a less than perfectly transparent — some say "Russian" — manner, Iceland completed the process of privatizing the state banks.
Mr. Yudin, who previously worked in the fertilizer industry, said Apatit, after coming under Mr. Khodorkovsky's control, had monopolized the concentrate needed by fertilizer producers, abusing the spirit of privatizing former state industries.
During his first term, Sharif initiated an ambitious program of economic reform, privatizing a range of state-owned businesses.
There is a difference between being a short term contractual amateur and a full time disciplined agent of a hostile foreign power, although in part that reflects the privatized vs. state orientation of the two countries.
