The third leg of the Washington Consensus was privatization of state owned economic enterprises. In many Third World nations the state’s share in the economy had come to total 60,70, or 80 percent, almost as much as in a socialist country. This remarkable development had been justified on the grounds that (1) the private entrepreneurial sector in many of these countries was weak and , therefore , the state had to step in and develop industry, (2) The enhancement of the state sector would provide a nice balance ( a “middle way”) between the private and public sectors, and (3) it vastly expanded the power and patronage of the government in power.