While some have cast the U.S. government’s $8.9 billion equity stake in Intel as the first step on the road to socialism, upon closer examination it looks more like a distinctive form of American state capitalism: one that entrenches corporate power while foreclosing more democratic and effective alternatives.

Anti-monopolists are right to worry about the concentrated power of institutional investors, but they are wrong to treat them as all bad. Common ownership presents an opportunity for the left to divide the interests of capitalists.