content: If what @AlphaWookie is saying is true, the government's intentions are to favor large corporations over independently operated businesses. This is not Marxism. This is not socialism. This is not leftism. It's corporate totalitarianism. The corporatists are running this show. edit: It's important to know that socialism does not necessitate state ownership of property. First, there are tons of different socialisms. The only underlying similarity between them all is that they hold the community to be of greater importance than the individual. This is why we can call both Nazis and anarcho-communists "socialists," despite the fact that they are polar opposites ideologically speaking.  Another issue of importance: capturing the state is the means by which socialists attempt to bring about their conception of socialism. It is not the end goal. The end goal is, loosely speaking, to give workers and communities control over resources and industry. The end goal, according to Marx, would necessitate the abolition of the state. What's generally thought of as Marxism or socialism by Americans is more specifically Marxist-Leninism. ML's attempt to capture the state by means of a violent revolution perpetrated by a minority party. They believe in central planning and state ownership of all resources and industry. This has been criticized by libertarian and democratic socialists as "state capitalism." Animal Farm by Orwell is a great introduction to these criticisms of MLism. What I'm trying to get at is it's perfectly reasonable for a socialist to side with the ranchers if what they are saying is true. Lands are often better managed by the local community, because they are the ones who have to live there. This makes sense coming from an ideology that favors grass roots, community control of resources.