2026-09-14 · socialism
You're already getting socialism—and Democratic Socialists have nothing to do with it
In a PIIE RealTime Economics post, Cullen Hendrix argued that the United States is moving toward more state ownership of the economy and that the shift is driven by the Trump administration rather than by Democratic Socialists. Drawing on the V-Dem State Ownership of Economy measure, he wrote that in 2025 the US fell to a position with 15 countries below it in state control of the economy, a year-over-year shift larger than all but about 1.2 percent of changes since 2005. He pointed to federal equity or equity-like stakes in more than 30 firms, including a 10 percent stake in Intel.
The analysis uses the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Project's State Ownership of Economy variable, coded by country experts.