On: If the markets reject OpenAI and Anthropic, the US should nationalize them |...

12 August 2026

The proposal to nationalize these great engines of calculation, should the market find them too heavy a burden, is a curious reversal of our usual economic scripts. We are told these systems are the new commons, yet they are currently fenced off by private capital. If the markets reject them, the suggestion is that the State should step in to preserve them for the public good.

In a cottage in Westmorland, a weaver once saw the power loom not as a tool of progress, but as a thief of his agency. Today, the clerk sees the “large language model” in the same light. The principle is that of a utility: when a technology becomes as necessary as water or light, its management must reflect the needs of the many rather than the whims of the few. If these models are to be the infrastructure of our thoughts, can we afford to leave them to the volatile moods of investors?

I observe a stark gap. The founders of these firms claimed they were building a safeguard for humanity, a shield against the reckless pursuit of profit. Yet, as I watch the ledgers, I see the pursuit of profit is the only thing keeping the machines humming. The claim is “safety for all”; the observation is “proprietary code for the highest bidder.” If the State takes them, the gap might close, or it might simply move. A government-owned monopoly is still a monopoly, and the tyranny of the majority is no less stifling than the tyranny of the shareholder. We must ask if the household is better served by a state-run brain or a competitive market of ideas. The answer lies in whether the weaver can finally use the loom, or if the loom simply belongs to a different master.