Nationalization (British English spelling nationalisation) is the process of taking an industry or assets into government ownership by a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to private assets, but may also mean assets owned by lower levels of government, such as municipalities, being transferred to the public sector to be operated and owned by the state. The opposite of nationalization is usually privatization or de-nationalization, but may also be municipalization.

A renationalization occurs when state-owned assets are privatized and later nationalized again, often when a different political party or faction is in power. A renationalization process may also be called reverse privatization. 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 nominally private, publicly listed corporation.^{[citation needed]}

Nationalization was one of the major strategies advocated by socialists for transitioning from capitalism to socialism. Socialist ideologies that favor nationalization are typically called state socialism. In this context, the goals of nationalization were to dispossess large capitalists and redirect the profits of industry to the public purse, as a precursor to the long-term goals of establishing worker-management and reorganizing production toward use.

Maxine Waters (born Maxine Moore Carr; August 15, 1938) is the U.S. Representative for California's 35th congressional district, and previously the 29th district, serving since 1991. She is a member of the Democratic Party. She is the most senior of the 12 black women currently serving in the United States Congress, and is a member and former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. Before Congress she served in the California Assembly, where she was first elected in 1976.

As an Assembly member Waters advocated for divestment from South Africa's apartheid regime. In Congress she was an outspoken opponent of the Iraq War.

Waters was charged by the House's subcommittee on ethics with violations of the House's ethics rules in 2010. An ethics trial is ongoing.

The fifth out of thirteen children, Waters was born 1938 in Kinloch, Missouri, to Remus and Velma Lee Carr Moore. She graduated from Vashon High School in St. Louis, and moved with her family to Los Angeles, California, in 1961. She worked in a garment factory and as a telephone operator before being hired as an assistant teacher with the Head Start program at Watts in 1966. She later enrolled at Los Angeles State College (now California State University, Los Angeles), and graduated with a sociology degree in 1970.

Maurice Dunlea Hinchey (born October 27, 1938), is the U.S. Representative for New York's 22nd congressional district (formerly the 26th district), serving since 1993. He is a member of the Democratic Party. The district extends west from the Hudson River along New York's southern border through Binghamton and Waverly, then north to Ithaca. In 2012 he announced he would retire at the end of his term, ending a long political career.

A New York City native who moved to the Hudson Valley after naval service to attend college, Hinchey had previously represented part of the area in the New York State Assembly since 1974. As chair of that body's Environmental Conservation Committee, he took the lead in bringing environmental issues to the fore, particularly when he held hearings on the problems created by toxic waste disposal in the Love Canal neighborhood of Niagara Falls. In his later years in Congress he vehemently opposed hydraulic fracturing to exploit the natural gas resources of the Marcellus Shale. Throughout his career he was considered a political progressive for his liberal stands on other issues.

Ronald Ernest "Ron" Paul (born August 20, 1935) is an American politician who has been the U.S. Representative for Texas's 14th congressional district, which includes Galveston, since 1997, and a three-time candidate for President of the United States, as a Libertarian in 1988 and as a Republican in 2008 and currently 2012. He is an outspoken critic of American foreign and monetary policies, including the Military–industrial complex and the Federal Reserve, and is known for his libertarian-leaning views, often differing from his own party on certain issues.

A native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Paul is a graduate of Gettysburg College and Duke University School of Medicine, where he earned his medical degree. He served as a medical officer in the United States Air Force from 1963 until 1968. He worked as an obstetrician-gynecologist from the 1960s to the 1980s, delivering more than 4,000 babies. He became the first Representative in history to serve concurrently with a child in the Senate when his son Rand Paul was elected to the United States Senate for Kentucky in 2010.

Theodore Fulton "Ted" Stevens, Sr. (November 18, 1923 – August 9, 2010) was a United States Senator from Alaska, serving from December 24, 1968, until January 3, 2009, and thus the longest-serving Republican senator in history. He was President pro tempore in the 108th and 109th Congresses from January 3, 2003, to January 3, 2007, and the third senator to hold the title of President pro tempore emeritus.

Stevens served for six decades in the American public sector, beginning with his service in World War II. In the 1950s, he held senior positions in the Eisenhower Interior Department. He played key roles in legislation that shaped Alaska's economic and social development, including the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, the Trans-Alaska Pipeline Authorization Act, the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, and the Magnuson–Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act. He was also known for his sponsorship of the Amateur Sports Act of 1978, which resulted in the establishment of the United States Olympic Committee.