You won't believe this, but state ownership (of the means of production) is generally a bad idea!
Governments shouldn't be in the business of running business
Take note, 'Murica's right-wing socialists!
The most unlikely bipartisan issue in the United States right now is state ownership of the means of production. Donald Trump is turning Uncle Sam into a stock picker. His administration has now taken or agreed to take equity positions in 34 companies, including roughly 10 percent of Intel and stakes or warrants of up to 15 percent of MP Materials and nearly 20 percent of Elmet Group.
...to be fair, he's been excellent at it, achieving roughly 400% return on its ~$9bn Intel stake.
"Meanwhile, the Democratic Socialists of America advocate public ownership of the largest corporations and essential industries."
oops? I didn't think it was this they meant when they said "you shall own nothing and be happy" #1559495 #1459569, #1330791
Despite ideological differences, both MAGA and DSA claim that government can support jobs, communities, resilience and innovation better than market forces, and both describe it as a necessary break with a long-standing American free-market consensus.
"There's nothing new about such policies"
...and he walks through the Swedish big government era of the 1960s and 1970s: own and run basically everything, regulate the rest, squander most -- including a copycat of McDonald's ("Clock").
Industrial policy gradually became an ad hoc system for rescuing failing companies. Instead of creating new industries, the government increasingly bailed out shipyards, steel companies and textile firms under pressure from trade unions and local politicians
Rent seeking... rent seeking everywhere.
- FINANCE MINISTER (Soc Democrat) in the 1980s: oops, state companies are black holes... "with few exceptions, been a gigantic failure"
- ASSAR LINDBECK (probs the most celebrated, accomplished economist): regret the investment bank decision: "[it] served no useful purpose during its existence"
For years, Sweden's National Debt Office kept a six-foot model of the TT Sea Scape in its headquarters, a tanker built with government support during the shipyard crisis, as a reminder of the costly industrial policies of the 1970s. Perhaps it is time for the Sea Scape to make one final voyage--across the Atlantic, to be displayed in the halls of Congress