Public Sector i.e. Government. 
E.g. collect taxes, police, welfare, roads, military, 
building inspections, schools  (local) 
All citizens control govt. thru voting in democracies and all may benefit collectively. 

Private For-Profit Business Sector.
Owners keep the profits & losses minus tax.
Vast wealth created in aggregate.  
Subject to government regulations.

At the boundary of Public & Private sectors govt. agencies may contract with PFP orgs. out-sourcing certain goods & services (more efficient? more flexible?) 

Thru privatization laws some pubic utilities move out of the public (monopoly) sector, e.g. transit, water, phone)

 

Plural, Private Nonprofit Sector
Aiming to serve a community need thru service and/or advocacy in health, education, welfare, arts, religion, political causes, etc. 
Founders & funders decide who benefits.

 

This sector (PNP) can also contract to supply services/goods  on behalf of a public agency, e.g. medical, transit, 

Mutual Benefit Sector 

"Members Only" control & enjoy the benefits. E.g. dining clubs, country clubs, burial societies


Relations Between Sectors

The borders between sectors can shift. For example privatization (notably in the 1990's) moved various monopoly utilities out of the Public Sector (e.g. phone, transit, water, airlines) and increased the use of private contractors for other public services (e.g. some special ed services, school buses, prisons).    
    We may believe that private ORGs can be more efficient (due to competition) than the public agency but a question remains as to whether the new incentives will skew results in some important way. Private charter schools are often evaluated on percent of entering students who complete the program but (unlike the public school they replace) they may exclude handi-capped students. This public/private school border dispute is about equity and ethics as much as efficiency and effectiveness.
    By law government regulates all ORGs, intending to protect public safety, e.g. thru building codes, food labeling, auto inspections, drug laws, gun laws, etc.  Advocacy groups are organized in the Third or Plural Sector to campaign on specific issues they see, to raise public support, then to press for legislative action. Another kind of action or campaign works behind the scenes to weaken existing enforcement mechanisms (e.g. to cut funding for inspections). 

All of this is part of democracy. So alas is the heavy role of big money in this process - not just to influence public opinion but to influence legislators who must collect big funding to get elected.
Lobbying (advocacy) is part of democracy - but various interest groups do not have equal access to legislators and then to staff regulators. 

But  cash influences elections to favor anti-regulation parties and to shift public opinion against active government role.  This has greatly increased, shifting the balance (im-balance ?) between these two sectors.
 

     President Eisenhower warned 50 years ago about the danger of the "Military-Industrial Complex" - an alliance across the Public-Private border - but that happened anyhow. Buried within vast military budget is  some basic research with civilian benefit, e.g. the internet. In these different times perhaps there can be a different partnership. This time:

A CLIMATE-INDUSTRIAL-MILITARY COMPLEX 

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