a very short “summary” of two opposing views. but why is this even up for debate and where is the actually socialist perspective here- that’s government ownership not workers’ ownership-
Yes. In practice, socialist governments have seized the means of production and directed the economy through central planning. “The government owning part of Intel is, on some level, socialism. It’s at least socialism-ish!” Robby Soave writes for The Hill.
No. The United States has a long history of getting involved in company ownership for the purpose of staying competitive with rival nations. “When America faced an international communist threat sponsored by Moscow, conservatives knew absolute devotion to free markets was self-defeating,” Daniel McCarthy writes for The Daily Signal.
Do the workers at Intel all own an equal stake in the means of production at Intel?
No?
Then it isn’t Socialist.
What you’re describing, a company that’s collectively owned by members of the company, is called a workplace co-op and it exists as an option within socialism but not a requirement. It’s pretty rare.
“Socialism is when the government does stuff, and the more stuff it does the more socialister it is.”
-Carlos Marks
The real problem is the right wing labeling anything and everything socialism and so even people on the ostensible “left” get an absolutely distorted view of what it is.
We have got to stop letting the right dictate the terms of public conversations because this is what you end up with: total misunderstanding rooted in the right’s purposeful distortion of reality and language.
Only if words no longer have meaning, or one is speaking without a wit in one’s head, or one is speaking with intent to deceive.
There are many good reasons why a nation might seek ownership of a strategic resource. There are also many bad reasons, and there are corrupt reasons. None of which relate greatly to the efficacy of any given purchase, and all of which are wholly separate as to the economic system at play.
We don’t know what State Capitalism is, so we think it must be Socialism
ftfy, nyt
Robby Soave is senior editor at Reason magazine
Daniel McCarthy writes for The American Conservative
a libertarian and a conservative debating whether Trump did something socialist is just mind-bogglingly stupid, even by the extremely low bar of the present-day New York Times.
This was not a puchase it was theft. See https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=l7WrrvHkBZA .
If you own stock in major US companies like many of us do you should care about this 10% wealth tax.
Your link is incorrect.
on my computer it links to the “THE SUNDAY DEBATE” section which is what i intended
This is your link:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/31/briefing/pips-new-york-times-games.html#link-4cee5a3e
Do you see “pips-new-york-times-games” in that link? That’s what your link goes to…some game and NOT “The Sunday Debate”.
I’m trying to post a section from NYT’s morning newsletter. This edition is headlined with NYT’s game, but I’m pointing to the “The Sunday Debate” section. I got the
#link-4cee5a3epart from the section heading’s h3 element ID, which means most browsers should jump to that heading when opening the link. If you do not jump to the section, try Ctrl+F-ing for “THE SUNDAY DEBATE”.I’ve quoted the entire section now.
The link doesn’t seem to work for me. Wouldn’t this be more in line with communism though? Meaning Trump is a communist?
No, workers do not own the means of production, the state does, so not communism. Just state owned capitalism
Fair. I took the state as being public, but in the US anyway, the state is just another private entity serving its own private interests.
on the link see my reply to remington here
