By Amirhossein Eshtiaghi

Bernie Sanders is a socialist populist. His unfamiliarity with the fundamentals of economics explains why he considers Denmark to be socialist. A former Danish Prime Minister once implicitly addressed such claims, noting that Denmark’s economy is not socialist, but rather a market economy. But the truth does not matter to American leftists.

He has now made headlines again with a bill that would expand state participation in the AI sector—a plan that, contrary to the claims of his supporters, could have disastrous consequences. In the following, these consequences are briefly examined.

This Is a Fascist Policy

Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, after the Soviet Union, were among the countries with the highest levels of state ownership and state control over the economy. In both Germany and Italy, the state controlled many companies, while private firms operated under strict state supervision and intervention. The Nazis nationalized nearly half of the economy and then used extensive regulations to bring the private sector under state control. Mussolini followed a similar approach. The state determined what goods would be produced, how they would be produced, and in what form they would be supplied.

Sanders says that artificial intelligence does not belong to billionaires but to the people. Fascists and Nazis used the same argument—that the private sector should be organized in line with the public interest—to justify extensive intervention in the market. In fact, Hitler and Mussolini were able to control the means of production in much the same way without removing corporate managers.

Comparing Sanders to fascism may seem unusual, but it should not be forgotten that the main leaders of Italian fascism, including Mussolini, were initially socialists before they became fascists. In fact, as Thomas DiLorenzo argues in his book The Problem with Socialism, fascism had socialist origins.

Regarding state ownership and state influence over AI, Sanders and Trump take similar approaches. Trump himself has admitted that the economic views of his voters and Sanders’s voters “aren’t that far apart”—and that may be one of the few honest statements Trump has made in his life. In fact, both are populists and seek to expand state power and weaken the free market economy.

Therefore, Sanders’s proposal, or similar proposals, could allow the state to gain control over the AI industry........

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