When previously nationalized assets are privatized and subsequently returned to public ownership at a later stage, they are said to have undergone renationalization (or deprivatization).
Industries often subject to nationalization include telecommunications, electric power, fossil fuels, railways, airlines, iron ore, media, postal services, banks, and water (sometimes called the commanding heights of the economy), and in many jurisdictions such entities have no history of private ownership.
[2] Economists distinguish between nationalization and socialization, which refers to the process of restructuring the economic framework, organizational structure, and institutions of an economy on a socialist basis.
[5] A re-nationalization occurs when state-owned assets are privatized and later nationalized again, often when a different political party or faction is in power.
Nationalization has been used to refer to either direct state-ownership and management of an enterprise or to a government acquiring a large controlling share of a publicly listed corporation.
"[6] He argues that leaders "nationalize extractive resources to extend the duration of their power" by using "this increased capital to secure political support.
[7] In 2019 research based on studies from Greenwich University found that the nationalization of key services such as water, bus, railways and broadband in the United Kingdom could save £13bn every year.
As Engels put it: Therein precisely lies the rub; for, so long as the propertied classes remain at the helm, nationalisation never abolishes exploitation but merely changes its form — in the French, American or Swiss republics no less than in monarchist Central, and despotic Eastern, Europe.Nikolai Bukharin also criticised the term nationalisation, preferring the term statisation instead.