Until now, the fascination with socialism could be dismissed as vibes. Not after this week.
In New York City, Democratic socialists won three Democratic primaries , all but guaranteeing victory in November’s general election. After last week’s Democratic primary, Washington, D.C., should soon, like New York and Seattle, have a socialist mayor. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez , a Democratic socialist, is a contender for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028.
But the real breakthrough is in Britain, where Andy Burnham , the socialist former mayor of Greater Manchester, is poised to become prime minister and Labour Party leader after Keir Starmer said Monday he would resign .
Andy Burnham, Britain’s Labour candidate for Makerfield, gestures in front of supporters during the by-election in Makerfield, England, Thursday, June 18, 2026 where voters are choosing a new lawmaker with Andy Burnham of the Labour Party as the leading contender.(AP Photo/Jon Super)
To Gen Z, socialism might be a euphemism for a kinder market and bigger welfare state. Burnham’s socialism is the real deal. He wants the state to control more of the means of production. As mayor, he brought the bus transit system in Greater Manchester under public control. For the country, he advocates public ownership of water, housing, energy and transportation.
Burnham’s ascendance is the latest sign that the stigma that once surrounded state ownership of the economy is fading. From Indonesia to Belgium, nationalization is in vogue.
Cornell University historian Nicholas Mulder, author of the coming book “The Age of Confiscation: Making and Taking Property in the Creation of the Modern World,” calls this the fourth wave of nationalization in the past century.
Previous waves in the 1930s, 1940s and 1970s were driven by a desire to preserve employment or a belief in the efficiency of public ownership and government-directed economic planning, Mulder said in an interview. This one is driven more by inflation (publicly provided services are claimed to be more affordable) and geopolitics, he said. That is, state control of certain assets is vital to national security.
This latest wave is also not confined to the left. There is little practical difference between the socialism advocated by Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and the state capitalism practiced by President Trump . For example, both want the federal government to take a stake in major artificial-intelligence companies .
In Britain, the right wing populist Reform UK until recently supported nationalizing 50% of utilities. The left-wing Green Party advocates nationalization of utilities and strategic sectors such as steel.
And, of course, all are emulating China, where the lines between the state and private sector have all but disappeared.
Britain is something of a nationalization bellwether. In the aftermath of World War II, its Labour government nationalized the Bank of England, airlines, coal, telecommunications, railways, electricity, gas, iron and steel. A second wave in the 1970s followed. Then, beginning with the election of Margaret Thatcher in 1979, Britain led the way on privatization, ultimately disposing of industrial companies, utilities, railways, public housing and even the post office.
Mulder points to British Steel as the poster child: nationalized by Labour in 1951, privatized by Conservatives in 1953, renationalized by Labour in 1967 and reprivatized by Thatcher in 1987.
Starmer, who took office in 2024, began renationalizing railways and British Steel.
But he rejected the more-sweeping takeovers advocated by Jeremy Corbyn , his hard-left predecessor as Labour leader. Starmer was a throwback to the centrist Labour prime ministers, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown . He promised to give priority to growth by holding the line on taxes, trimming spending, lifting barriers to infrastructure and housing, and mending relations with the European Union.
The economy actually performed reasonably well under Starmer, growing faster than the eurozone, though more slowly than the U.S. Wages outpaced inflation.
But after Labour’s left wing revolted over cuts to winter fuel subsidies and welfare, Starmer tacked left, raising payroll taxes and the minimum wage. Yet the British, like Americans, remain deeply dissatisfied with the economy, inflation and incomes. That and scandals destroyed Starmer’s support.
As with Britain’s Labour, the rise of socialists (or Democratic socialists, as they usually call themselves) in the Democratic Party owes less to the broad popularity of their positions than to the failure of centrists to excite the party’s base.
Indeed, Tuesday’s primaries revolved less around economics than hot-button issues such as Gaza and immigration. The closest the website of Darializa Avila Chevalier, who beat a five-term incumbent Tuesday, gets to nationalization is “Medicare for All” that includes, among other things, access to abortion and “gender affirming care for everyone.”
So socialists as yet don’t have much of a mandate to shift the structure of the economy. Socialists are better at capturing mindshare than vote share; they will remain a tiny portion of the Democratic caucus, representing the bluest bits of the country.
For his part, Burnham is a political shape-shifter. He wore designer suits while serving the centrists Blair and Brown before swapping them for jeans, sneakers and polo shirts as the socialist mayor of Manchester.
He calls his governing philosophy “Manchesterism,” or “business-friendly socialism.” Private contractors still operate the buses in Manchester, while the local government sets fares and routes.
Nationally, he might be able to nationalize Thames Water, a troubled utility serving southern England, but bigger targets are constrained by the budget deficit.
But none of this should subtract from the bigger takeaway. State control of the means of production, once discredited across the political spectrum, is now, thanks to Trump, no longer anathema on the right. And this week showed it is fast gaining acceptance on the left, too.
Write to Greg Ip at greg.ip@wsj.com
