The Quiet Renationalization of Industry

Nationalization is politically impossible in most Western economies and functionally underway in several. The mechanism is not expropriation, it is accumulation: an equity stake attached to a rescue, a golden share retained after a privatization, a security agreement that gives a ministry a veto over the board.

Each instrument is defensible on its own facts. Taken together they produce firms that operate commercially, report to private shareholders, and cannot make a significant decision without a government official's agreement.

This hybrid has real advantages. It preserves managerial discipline while giving the state a lever it can pull in an emergency, which is more than it had during the last several.

It also has an accountability gap that nobody has closed. When a firm is fully public, a legislature can examine it. When it is fully private, a market can price it. A firm in between is examined by neither, and the officials exercising the veto are rarely required to explain why.