In response to Starlink throttling data used by Ukraine, I saw someone suggest nationalization of SpaceX as a response.

And yeah, I get the impulse. There is an appeal to the idea that the public should own an asset built with public resources, serving a function, owned by a fascist capitalist.

But…the US is currently run by that fascist capitalist’s best friend, another fascist capitalist. Nationalizing resources doesn’t place them under *public* ownership and command; it places them under the command of the state. The state is merely the bureaucratic and coercive arm of the capitalist class—but even if it weren’t, it’s still trivially easy for billionaires to capture the state and mobilize it for their own purposes (hence…Trump and Musk throttling Starlink to extort the Ukrainian state for their personal advantage).

It just feels so painfully naive to call for nationalization by the US government as a solution to people like Musk when the US government is run by people like Musk. The state and capital are already in bed together!