Privatism is a generic term describing any belief that people have a right to the private ownership

Private property

Private property is the right of persons and firms to obtain, own, control, employ, dispose of, and bequeath land, capital, and other forms of property. Private property is distinguishable from public property, which refers to assets owned by a state, community or government rather than by...

 of certain things. There are many degrees of privatism, from the advocacy of limited private property over specific kinds of items (personal property

Personal property

Personal property, roughly speaking, is private property that is moveable, as opposed to real property or real estate. In the common law systems personal property may also be called chattels or personalty. In the civil law systems personal property is often called movable property or movables - any...

) to the advocacy of unrestricted private property over everything; such as in anarcho-capitalism

Anarcho-capitalism

Anarcho-capitalism is a libertarian and individualist anarchist political philosophy that advocates the elimination of the state in favour of individual sovereignty in a free market...

.

In general, privatism is used in the context of radical left-wing politics (communism

Communism

Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...

, syndicalism

Syndicalism

Syndicalism is a type of economic system proposed as a replacement for capitalism and an alternative to state socialism, which uses federations of collectivised trade unions or industrial unions...

, libertarian socialism

Libertarian socialism

Libertarian socialism is a group of political philosophies that promote a non-hierarchical, non-bureaucratic, stateless society without private property in the means of production...

), to distinguish those who support private ownership of an economy's means of production

Means of production

Means of production refers to physical, non-human inputs used in production—the factories, machines, and tools used to produce wealth — along with both infrastructural capital and natural capital. This includes the classical factors of production minus financial capital and minus human capital...

 and those who desire abolishing it in favour of either collective ownership or common ownership

Common ownership

Common ownership is a principle according to which the assets of an enterprise or other organization are held indivisibly rather than in the names of the individual members or by a public institution such as a governmental body. It is therefore in contrast to public ownership...

.

In sociology

Sociology

Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...

, privatism is the concern with or pursuit of one's personal or family interests, welfare, or ideals to the exclusion of broader social issues or relationships. It has been argued that privatism is on the increase in wealthy western societies.