What does the “private” modifier do?

Question

Considering \"private\" is the default access modifier for class Members, why is the keyword even needed?

Answer 1

As pointed out by Jon Skeet in his book C# In Depth, there is one place in C# where the private keyword is required to achieve an effect.

If my memory serves correctly, the private keyword is the only way to create a privately scoped property getter or setter, when its opposite has greater than private accessibility. Example:

public bool CanAccessTheMissileCodes
{
    get { return canAccessTheMissileCodes; }
    private set { canAccessTheMissileCodes = value; }
}

The private keyword is required to achieve this, because an additional property accessability modifier can only narrow the scope, not widen it. (Otherwise, one might have been able to create a private (by default) property and then add a public modifier.)