The case for nationalization of industries....

[RadioRaheem84]

Are there any books, websites or stuff of any kind that indicates why nationalization of certain key industries would be a good thing? For instance why nationalize the oil companies in the US? How would that solve a lot of problems? What else should be nationalized that would help pay the debt burden? From a liberal soc dem standpoint how would this even be feasible and why would this be a better option than having it remain in private hands?

[Geiseric]

Have you ever thought of the differences between private and public property? Nationalize is another word for making something public property.

[Sotionov]

I don't know about books, but in this nice anti-"libertarian" faq, this guy (who obviously economically is a 'social-democrat') explains how nationalization of some businesses, including health-care and education, is better then market-capitalist model of running them:

http://raikoth.net/libertarian.html#competence_of_government

[Popular Front of Judea]

A good case for nationalization of the banking sector can be be made -- and not just by the usual suspects:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/23/opinion/banks-that-are-too-big-to-regulate-should-be-nationalized.html

(Why the focus on paying down the debt with the profits of nationalized industries? You do realize that our public sector debt is denominated in our own fiat currency?)

[The Idler]

Engels had a few things to say about state ownership

since Bismarck went in for State-ownership of industrial establishments, a kind of spurious Socialism has arisen, degenerating, now and again, into something of flunkyism, that without more ado declares all State-ownership, even of the Bismarkian sort, to be socialistic. Certainly, if the taking over by the State of the tobacco industry is socialistic, then Napoleon and Metternich must be numbered among the founders of Socialism. If the Belgian State, for quite ordinary political and financial reasons, itself constructed its chief railway lines; if Bismarck, not under any economic compulsion, took over for the State the chief Prussian lines, simply to be the better able to have them in hand in case of war, to bring up the railway employees as voting cattle for the Government, and especially to create for himself a new source of income independent of parliamentary votes — this was, in no sense, a socialistic measure, directly or indirectly, consciously or unconsciously. Otherwise, the Royal Maritime Company, the Royal porcelain manufacture, and even the regimental tailor of the army would also be socialistic institutions, or even, as was seriously proposed by a sly dog in Frederick William III's reign, the taking over by the State of the brothels.

[Prof. Oblivion]

Are there any books, websites or stuff of any kind that indicates why nationalization of certain key industries would be a good thing? For instance why nationalize the oil companies in the US? How would that solve a lot of problems? What else should be nationalized that would help pay the debt burden? From a liberal soc dem standpoint how would this even be feasible and why would this be a better option than having it remain in private hands?

What debt burden?

[G4b3n]

Nationalization by any state, especially the bourgeois state (which is extremely reformist) is undesirable. It continues to alienate workers, in no way is it owned publicly, it is the hands of the statist elite. Nationalization does not solve any problems on any level.

[ckaihatsu]

Nationalization generally *implies* the socialization of industry (into public property), as from the political position of left-populism -- from the *revolutionary* standpoint, though, nationalization would be seen as a radical *reformist* measure, a call that could arise from a movement like Occupy.

Sure, the caution regarding statism is well-received, but no revolutionary would see nationalization as an end in itself, anyway -- full proletarian power would be fought-for.

[Geiseric]

If the entire working class is capable of putting up and supporting demands such as nationalizations of all industries including banking I would call that the first step in the class dictatorship. Of course a workers government would need to be set up to deal with such a thing, which would be a necessity seeing as I doubt the bourgeoisie and the state as a whole, including the national military, will like that measure, as we saw with Allende. The problems with the Spanish Revolution were three things, they didn't nationalize the banking industry, organize their army until later on, and they didn't support giving morocco independence.

[Igor]

i sure as hell would rather work for a nationalised industrial company than the insecure temping hellhole that most industries are becoming

[RadioRaheem84]

What debt burden?

I know the country is not broke like what reactionaries are saying. I'm just saying nationalize to pay for social services.

[Prof. Oblivion]

I know the country is not broke like what reactionaries are saying. I'm just saying nationalize to pay for social services.

The state could pay for social services right now if it wanted, no nationalization necessary, so that's a bad argument for nationalization.

[Teacher]

I saw a book that came out recently called The Entreprenuerial State that tries to refute the stereotype of "inefficient state/dynamic market."