In other industries, such as rail and electricity, general taxation was used to fund modernisation creating a cheap resource for the capitalist class. Since the rest of the economy remained privately owned, there were also plenty of ways in which the funding of the nationalised industries became a means of channelling public money into private hands. The NHS has always been a lucrative market for the drug companies. However, nationalisations were not the solution to the economic crises created by capitalism. Not only did they leave most property in private capitalist hands, but they were never integrated into a plan of production aimed at harnessing the power of nationalised industries to meet human need.
Planning is the vital adjunct to state ownership in the Marxist programme.
But, once you try to plan from above, the argument goes, you are meddling with a natural process called the market. Shortages, bottlenecks and inefficiency inevitably result. This brings us to the second, failed, form of nationalisation Stalinism did destroy the social power of the capitalists. It nationalised without compensation. It also organised production across society through a centralised plan.