REPUBLICAN SOCIALISM

THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION IS BUYING STAKES IN COMPANIES. THAT NEVER ENDS WELL.

- ERIC BOEHM

ONE DANGER OF nationalism, Friedrich Hayek warned in 1960, was the “bridge” it provides “from conservatism to collectivism.”

“To think in terms of ‘our’ industry or resource,” he wrote, “is only a short step away from demanding that these national assets be directed in the national interest.”

That’s a short step that President Donald Trump has eagerly taken. In the first nine months of his second term in office, the president has overseen a giant government leap into the boardrooms of strategically important businesses.

In June, Trump demanded (and the federal government received) a so-called golden share in U.S. Steel, which effectively gives the White House veto power over much of the company's future. Two months later, the Trump administration purchased a 10 percent equity stake in Intel, the once-dominant and recently struggling American chipmaker. Similar stakes in at least four other companies followed, including ones that produce nuclear power or mine metals such as lithium and copper that are necessary for building high-tech chips and advanced batteries.

Even in light of the administration's other intrusions into the free market—hiking tariffs on nearly all imports, applying ideological conditions on media companies' proposed mergers, and the like—this has been a breathtaking turn of events. Trump and his top officials have signaled that they are only getting started. In August he told reporters “I want to try and get as much as I can.”