I have two toddlers and they are both at all times trying to injure themselves.
Maybe not trying, per se, but certainly not trying not to injure themselves. Hot things, sharp things, loud things, things that slam, things like gravity — they think they can defeat it all.
It’s terrifying.
As a parent, I warn them of the dangers of their actions, but there’s only so much I can do. Eventually they ignore me and do what they want and I just have to let them learn from their own mistakes.
Voters of New York, you are like my toddlers. With the election of a socialist mayor imminent, it seems you’re just going to have to learn a lesson. Fortunately for me, I get to watch the lesson learning from a few thousand miles away and, since you’re not actually my kids, I won’t tear up when it happens.
Democratic Socialist Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani is the front runner for New York City’s next mayor. Despite opposition from incumbent Eric Adams, a longshot Republican, and possibly former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Mamdani is likely the next mayor even peddling a load of pricey, ineffective socialist policies.
It doesn’t matter that Marxism has led to pain and suffering and death of millions of people throughout the world and that Socialist policies are disproven in cities daily — New York is determined. Despite having been told repeatedly not to touch the stove, New York’s progressive voters are willing to burn themselves in a vain attempt to prove it’s not hot.
Socialism, like all Marxism, is based on utopian ideas that defy economics, human nature and common sense. It fails largely for three reasons: humans are all different, central planners aren’t as smart as they think they are and it’s too expensive.
Socialist theory is just ridiculous.
“I don’t think that we should have billionaires,” Mamdani said on NBC’s Meet the Press. “Because frankly it is so much money in a moment of so much inequality and ultimately what we need more of is equality across our city and across our state and across our country.”
A government that regulates wealth is a scary government, but most people don’t care about billionaires, so Mamdani can get away with saying this. In his defense, he hasn’t called for a policy to eliminate billionaires, he just dreams of it. But take it a step further: How would he propose getting rid of billionaires? Would he make it so the government could seize anything beyond $999,999,999? If he thinks a billion is too much, then $999,999,999 probably seems too much too.
So what is an acceptable accumulation of wealth? $50 million? $10 million? $500,000? The answer, if socialists are being honest, is that they strongly believe in curtailing ownership of personal property. There’s really no limiting principle, except vague notions of what’s “fair,” which could mean anything and is why this is scary.
They would say “that’s not true!” But you can look at what’s happened when socialists have taken over and also look at the logical conclusion of their policies and see that yes, in fact, it is true.
New York City has 123 billionaires, the most in any city in the world (though I’m sure at least a few are looking at neighborhoods in New Jersey and Connecticut as I write this). Ironically, formerly Communist Moscow is second on the list. To defend that, Mamdani would have to say: “See? Once the Soviets abandoned Communism inequality was born!” Sure, in the Soviet Union most people suffered equally.
Mamdani plans to raise $10 billion from a mix of corporate and income taxes and has vowed to “work with everyone, including billionaires, to make a city that is fairer for all of them,” but already you can see the absurdity of his beliefs.
It’s doubtful many in New York’s affluent society will see how this arrangement could make things “fairer” for them. How could they? In Mamdani’s view, wealth itself is unfair and lifting the poor and unfortunate can only be done at someone else’s expense. But even this shows a fundamental misunderstanding of both humanity and economics.
People are different, which is to say not equal. Under our Constitution, people have equal rights and deserve equal treatment, but they have different skills, attributes, opportunities and desires. It is not unfair that some are rich and some are poor — it is not some glitch in the system, it is a natural result of humanity.
Billionaires become wealthy as the result of hard work, marketable ideas and some luck. You can look at the world’s richest people and see they didn’t get that way by accident. A better use of Mamdani’s time would be helping people figure out how to create wealth (though he probably has no idea).
All of this is important to understand when evaluating Mamdani’s proposals. He’s a Marxist, which means his policy positions are inherently flawed.
Mamdani wants to freeze rents. But price controls lead to shortages and don’t reduce housing costs, as we see in major cities with rent control throughout the country.
Mamdani wants government-owned grocery stores. But he can ask his comrades how similar schemes have worked out in places like Venezuela and Ukraine. Though grocery stores are a very low-profit endeavor, Mamdani plans to keep costs low by not charging rent or property taxes (it’s doubtful this math adds up) and does nothing to address the underlying issue of why food prices are rising. And here’s a question: Why not just waive property taxes for private grocery stores?
Mamdani promises fast and free buses. While what he means by “free” speaks for itself, he will allegedly make bus routes faster by making the public infrastructure more bus friendly. He’s also promising free childcare. For everyone (even billionaires). Sounds great, but the flaws with his logic are too many to list here.
So it goes. Free stuff, sham economics, utopian fever dreams. But his plans would not work as designed for the same reason plaguing central planners for more than a century: They don’t have the requisite knowledge to make their plans work.
The other problem is that someone would have to pay for it. According to Mamdani, that would be the affluent. But as with most things, it’ll be the middle class who really pays. And since Mamdani’s ideas can’t work for reasons he refuses to see, New Yorkers will end up paying out the nose for programs that will hurt the people they intend to help.
It will be a painful lesson — that I’ll watch from afar.
Matt Fleming is a columnist for the Southern California News Group. Follow him on X @FlemingWords