During an interview with PBS’s “Firing Line” released on Friday, Democratic U.S. House nominee Melat Kiros said that she only wants to take over private industries for basic needs and defined basic needs as things like “housing, healthcare, nutritional food, public education” where “the profit motive will always end up exploiting the most vulnerable people.” Though she later said she only is intrigued by government ownership for “utilities, like water and energy.”
Kiros said, [relevant remarks begin around 16:40] “I’m a socialist because I believe all of the evidence shows that, when you have a profit motive in industries where we’re talking about our most basic needs, housing, healthcare, nutritional food, public education, the profit motive will always end up exploiting the most vulnerable people. And that’s fine if we’re talking about iPhones, right? If we’re talking, like, not everybody’s going to get an iPhone, okay, that’s fine. When we’re talking about housing, when we’re talking about healthcare, the profit motive only — it prevents the most vulnerable communities from actually getting access to those most basic needs. And so, I’m a socialist, because I believe that housing and healthcare should be organized by the people, and I think government is the best vehicle for that to happen in a truly functioning democracy.”
Host Margaret Hoover then asked, “So, for those who think you want to take over private industries, all of them, I think what I’m hearing you say is, only the ones that represent the providers of people’s basic needs?”
Kiros answered, “Yes, yeah.”
Hoover followed up, “But you’re saying all other corporations and companies can have at it?”
Kiros responded, “Have at it, so as long as they are also not exploiting their workers, right? So, I also support expanding unions and the ability to create a union, right?”
Later, during an exchange on the DSA platform’s position on government control of large corporations and essential industries, Kiros said that “the only ownership proposals that I’ve seen that I’m interested in are related to, like, utilities, like water and energy. I think there’s a really compelling case there.”
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