Trump’s Anti-Capitalist Control Over Businesses

Moral Defense of Business Podcasts

Trump’s Anti-Capitalist Control Over Businesses

September 22, 2025

1 min read

Business leaders need to stand up for themselves before it’s too late.

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Podcast audio:

In this Ayn Rand Institute Podcast episode, Sam Weaver, Robertas Bakula, and Ben Bayer analyze Trump’s recent coercive threats toward business leaders, such as the recent Intel deal. They unpack the flawed popular, and disastrously misguided, conception of “state capitalism”, explain what fascism really is, and discuss how socialist sympathizers fostered this trend toward government control.

Among the topics covered:

How Trump pressures businesses through tariffs and ownership demands;
Why mainstream media mislabels this as “state capitalism”;
How the Republican Party degenerated;
Is Trump’s approach toward business socialist or proto-fascist economics?
Why fascism is not a form of government;
How business leaders’ response emboldens their destroyers.

Recommended in this podcast are Ayn Rand’s talks “The New Fascism: Rule by Consensus” and “The Fascist New Frontier“, her essay “What is Capitalism?“, the Ayn Rand Lexicon entries on fascism and communism, and the ARI episode “Why Socialists Fear the Republican Party Platform“. Also mentioned is Onkar Ghate and Don Watkins’ Profit Without Apology: The Need to Stand Up for Business.

This podcast was recorded on September 2, 2025, and posted on September 18, 2025. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Watch archived podcasts here.

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Ibis Slade

Ibis Slade is a junior fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute and a content creator. He focuses on American intellectual and moral history.

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