In C++, you can do the following: class base_class { public: virtual void do_something() = 0; }; class derived_class : public base_class { private: virtual void do_something() { std::cout << "do_something() called"; } }; The derived_class overrides the method do_something() and makes it private. The effect is, that the only way to call this method is like this: base_class *object = new derived_class(); object->do_something(); If you declare the object as of type derived_class, you can't call the method because it's private: derived_class *object = new derived_class(); object->do_something(); // --> error C2248: '::derived_class::do_something' : cannot access private member declared in class '::derived_class' I think this is quite nice, because if you create an abstract class that is used as an interface, you can make sure that nobody accidentally declares a field as the concrete type, but always uses the interface class. Since in C# / .NET in general, you aren't allowed to narrow the access from public to private when overriding a method, is there a way to achieve a similar effect here?