Barack Obama’s notorious admonishment to business owners that “you didn’t build that” was bad enough, but a recent statement by Donald Trump is even more collectivist: he claims he owns the store.
The Financial Times reports on a Time Magazine interview of President Trump (“Donald Trump Claims to Have Received Call from Xi Jinping and to Have Cut ‘200 Deals’ on Trade,” Financial Times, April 25, 2025):
When asked what Xi had told him in the conversation that Trump claims happened, the US president referred to the power he had as gatekeeper for the US consumer market. “It’s a giant, beautiful store, and everybody wants to go shopping there. And on behalf of the American people, I own the store, and I set prices, and I’ll say, if you want to shop here, this is what you have to pay,” Trump told Time.
It seems that Mr. Trump was confusing imports and exports, for what his trade policy is focused on is deciding which suppliers his store will buy from. But let’s ignore this small detail.
If the chief ruler of a country says he owns the store, he is expressing something quite close to Marxist theory, of which a major pillar is the collective (“social”) ownership of the means of production, which include retail outlets. The country is a collective, and the store is collective property. The apparent owners of private stores, if there are any, benefit from a special privilege from the collective or are simply state agents. Nobody can buy from, or sell to, the collective store without the permission—and tax gouging—of the gatekeeper.
Invoking “the people” is a mere excuse to justify the state’s ownership of the means of production. Nothing can be owned by everybody, for ownership means control. Collective ownership implies that no individual “owner” may sell his share; quite the contrary, he is stuck with it and must make sacrifices for it. In Chapter 13 of Justice and Its Surroundings, Anthony de Jasay discusses the “social ownership” pretense of Marxist collectivism. Owning and controlling the means of production “on behalf of the people” or the working class is only a propaganda trick. In both collectivism of the left (Marxism and socialism) and collectivism of the right (populism and fascism), the store belongs to those who control the state or act as its agents. (Note the big principal-agent problem there.) A populist leader gives a different flavor to the myth of collective ownership by pretending that he embodies the people.
Needless to add, no classical liberal theorist ever argued that the chief official of the government of a free country would “own the store.”
Who would have thought that the populist ruler of America was more Marxist than today’s run-of-the-mill social democrats or socialists? In truth, it is not surprising because the left and the right both hold collective and political choices as superior to individual and private choices. Mr. Trump is not a Marxist, he is just another sort of collectivist.
An alternative hypothesis is that, with his store ownership claim, Mr. Trump was just making noises with his vocal chords, without grasping the meaning of the sounds. An economist is methodologically reluctant to make this diagnosis but, in a recent Reason column, Jacob Sullum suggests something along these lines.
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“The owner of the USA Store sitting behind his checkout counter,” by Pierre Lemieux and ChatGPT
READER COMMENTS
steve
May 6 2025 at 1:53pm
Trump runs a non-stop Gish Gallop so it’s really hard to know if he just lying/exaggerating as usual or if he is having some cognitive loss. I think it’s some of each though mostly right now just his usual lying and hyperbole and never admitting that he was wrong about anything. I would note that after years of listening to him he didnt used to talk like he does now. It’s now often a word salad. You can figure out what he means if you have heard him before or you can ask a fan to interpret for you. He didnt talk like that in the past during interviews.
That said, he has said over and over similar things like it’s good to be king or he runs the country and the world. Anyway, for my money the bad part is that people listen to him and actually believe him. This cult of personality he has developed is so odd to happen in America. We specifically revolted against a monarchy and now people seem to want to elevate him to a similar level.
Steve
Matthias
May 6 2025 at 3:59pm
By the time of the unpleasantness in some of the North American colonies, Britain wasn’t really ruled by the monarch any more. Parliament had long been running the show.
steve
May 6 2025 at 6:28pm
By my reading, during the time of the American Revolution Parliament passed the laws and taxes but the King appointed those who governed the colonies and was mostly responsible through those he chose in enforcing the laws and taxes. Note that the colonists actually presented most of their petitions to the king. So it would probably be most accurate, reading what the Americans wrote at the time that they thought they were overthrowing both a monarchy and Parliament ie tyranny.
Steve
Scott Sumner
May 6 2025 at 2:18pm
Excellent post. Some will say Trump’s comments are merely empty rhetoric. But then he puts 145% tariffs on goods from China, and it’s clear that he really believes this stuff.
Craig
May 6 2025 at 4:17pm
Hamilton writing in Federalist 11: “If we continue united, we may counteract a policy so unfriendly to our prosperity in a variety of ways. By prohibitory regulations, extending, at the same time, throughout the States, we may oblige foreign countries to bid against each other, for the privileges of our markets.”
“It seems that Mr. Trump was confusing imports and exports, for what his trade policy is focused on is deciding which suppliers his store will buy from. But let’s ignore this small detail.” – I agree he is definitely in cognitive decline, but what he IS saying is very similar to what Hamilton is writing as the purpose of the US Constitution as originally ratified in 1787, no?
Pierre Lemieux
May 6 2025 at 9:45pm
Craig: Hamilton was still in his protectionist period, wasn’t he? To think that “countries” would have to bid against each other shows a mercantilist rather than an individualist outlook. Yet, one may argue that he did not go as far as Trump: he did not suggest that the president would decide arbitrarily who (which country) could supply Americans and at what price. Is it possible that by “bid” he just meant “compete” and by “foreign countries,” the individuals and companies of these countries?
Craig
May 6 2025 at 11:07pm
Craig: Hamilton was still in his protectionist period, wasn’t he?
Post ratification he goes from a proponent of reciprocal trade to supporting infant industry argument in Report on Manufacturers.
To think that “countries” would have to bid against each other shows a mercantilist rather than an individualist outlook.
An outlook share by both Madison and Jefferson, two other proponents of ‘aggressive reciprocity’
“Yet, one may argue that he did not go as far as Trump: he did not suggest that the president would decide arbitrarily who (which country) could supply Americans and at what price.”
The entire concept of Congress delegating large swaths of authority to the Executive Branch would likely have shocked all of them.
“Is it possible that by “bid” he just meant “compete” and by “foreign countries,” the individuals and companies of these countries?”
Sometimes 18th century prose can have nuances missed in today’s reader, indeed as written the construction is awkward to the modern English speaker, but I simply take it to mean that the US can use its greater size as leverage to get better terms.
As Secy of the Treasury Hamilton would morph into a supporter of uniform/non discriminatory revenue tariff.
Mactoul
May 7 2025 at 12:06am
And is the converse control means ownership also true? In other words might is right. Suppose my property gets squatted upon and I lose control, does that mean that I am no longer the owner?
Do the courts adjudicate control or right to control?
I have a feeling that the formulation ownership=control is devised to avoid being dragged into uncomfortable places. For the question of rightful control goes into rights and the source of said rights and their limits and so on to horror of horrors, right that exists because of the state of laws–and thus a negation of anarchy.
Kevin Corcoran
May 7 2025 at 4:13pm
No, of course not. To say that A entails B (or implies it, or requires it, or whatever) obviously does not compel the conclusion that B entails A (or requires it, or implies it, or whatever). Otherwise you’ll be committed to embracing absurdities like “Singing means using your voice” (obviously true) leads to the converse statement “Using your voice means singing” (obviously false).
And there is a world of difference between saying “ownership means control” and your later statement “ownership=control.” Just like there’s a world of difference between saying “singing means using your voice” and “singing = using your voice.” And it would strain credulity to read “ownership means control” as saying “ownership is identical to control, with no other consideration or component as part of the overall concept.” It would be terribly sloppy to conflate those two things. Ownership (and related concepts like property rights) are multifaceted concepts – and attempting to reduce them down to simplistic takes like “ownership = control” will do little more than produce muddled thinking.
David Seltzer
May 7 2025 at 6:31pm
Kevin: It seems muddled thinking is becoming chronic. If one really tries to think critically, it can be exhausting. I believe that’s still a better trade-off in terms of one’s opportunity cost of time. Even if one is wrong.
Jon Murphy
May 7 2025 at 6:52pm
To build upon Kevin’s point, there is no property if “control means ownership.” What seperates possession from property is that ownership is not determined by control. Even if someone bigger and stronger than me comes along and takes my stuff, it remains my stuff. Even if I lack the stregnth to take it back, it remains mine. His actions would remain wrong.
One should note this distinction between mere possession and property appears to be pretty universally human. Even in the most totalitarian societies, control does not mean ownership. There is still some concept of theft (even if it is just “stealing from Dear Leader”).
Craig
May 8 2025 at 9:34am
Let me preface this by saying that one of the more useful analogies to describe property rights is to think of them as a bundle of sticks. So if I own a property I could convey to you all of my sticks of course, but I could convey one of them, say a tenancy….
“And is the converse control means ownership also true?”
A tenant very well may have exclusive present right to possess a property but that would not suggest ownership.
“In other words might is right.”
You’re making a pretty big leap there.
“Suppose my property gets squatted upon and I lose control, does that mean that I am no longer the owner?”
No, you would still be the owner. Remember when a squatter is on your property, when you call the police you tell the police that the squatter is a squatter and should be evicted in a manner not dissimilar from a burglar. The squatter says, untruthfully, that he is a lawful tenant and you’re trying to unlawfully evict him without going to landlord tenant court first. The police have no way to tell the difference so they throw their hands up and tell you to go to court and at that point its up to you to get them evicted.
The long term, and rare, exception would be adverse possession.
Do the courts adjudicate control or right to control?
They can do both. I think the concept of a ‘right to possess’ might be a bit better here, but courts will adjudicate all kinds of property disputes pertaining to any of the sticks of the bundle that I alluded to before.
Mactoul
May 7 2025 at 12:14am
The same power is exercised by all countries, present and past. Currently Indian exports to EU are threatened by some Climate Change Carbon levy that EU has chosen to impose.
And are you really unaware that GATT and Doha round, not to mention NAFTA et al were trade treaties negotiated by governments. International trade has ever been under government oversight. Trump has done nothing new.
In 1980s, USA has imposed import quotas for textiles by country. Say India could export this much to USA and Nepal could this much and so on. Was it not gatekeeping, right in the heyday of Reaganian economics?
Pierre Lemieux
May 7 2025 at 8:22am
Mactoul: Are you really unaware of the classical liberal and libertarian arguments for unilateral free trade (they go back to David Hume and Adam Smith)? Or is it just equal individual liberty that bugs you?
You can get a glimpse at the argument for unilateral free trade in my Econlib article “Taking Comparative Advantage Seriously.” And you can get a glimpse at the qualified (but perhaps too conservative) argument for free trade agreements in my “Free Trade Agreements Revisited.” Probably you should read the book (not just my review) of your former fellow citizen Arwind Panagariya, Free Trade & Prosperity: How Openness Helps the Developing Countries Grow Richer and Combat Poverty (my review was titled, borrowing from Panagariya “Protectionism as a Skin Disease”).
Mactoul
May 8 2025 at 3:26am
Trade agreements are agreements between governments. Unilateral free trade is also a government act. When UK parliament repealed Corn Laws, it acted in a gatekeeping capacity as much as had it enacted the Corn Laws.
My point was simple–Trump has not done anything novel or even unconstitutional or even illegal. Otherwise, why the importers and companies/individuals adversely affected by tariffs etc not going to the courts and arguing that these acts are illegal or unconstitutional?
This condemnation of Trump is even more bizarre when the trade barriers are being erected everywhere. EU does it in name of Climate Change, China does it on whim too (restricting export of rare earths).
Jon Murphy
May 8 2025 at 6:26am
There are three or four lawsuits filed. They are going to court.