Nationalisation

The takeover by the state of private businesses. Under communism, all large businesses are state-owned and the previous private owners are rarely compensated. In a social democracy, the state tends to focus on certain industries, notably utilities (power generation, water etc), those deemed to be strategically important (steel, coal) and loss-making businesses that employ a lot of workers. Nationalisation was common after 1945 but was reversed under the privatisation programmes of the 1980s and 1990s.