Socialism (communism), as is being packaged in New York City, can...work?
For a season. The appeal to “affordability” and “free stuff” has a strong draw. The glossy brochure presents free transportation, state-run grocery stores, rent freezes, and the confiscation of unused housing.
Of course, long-term, these ideas have been tried before and have failed miserably, as the Kansas City–run grocery store just failed, and as state-run stores failed in the Soviet Union.
Seizing the means of production and price controls, as Zohran Mamdani has proposed, are responsible for the deaths of more than 100 million Russians, Ukrainians, Chinese, Cambodians, Venezuelans, Cubans, and more.
Although the end result is always the same (regardless of who tries it), the early stages of these seizures and state-run control can be successful. Here’s how.
Free-market capital hasn’t (yet) had a chance to escape. Many wealthy persons (including liberals) will eventually pull their cash out of New York, but with declining real estate valuations and almost certain exit taxes, many will hesitate to pull the trigger.
Some others in the capital class can garner favor within the apparat, so they’re willing [for a time] to provide some funding to help set up the system that they then have a hand in controlling. These apparatchiks eventually take more than they contribute, resulting in declining capital to fund the Party, always resulting in collapse.
The financial inputs (taxes) to run the city or state have not yet impacted workers lower down the food chain (the middle class). Eventually, with the wealthy leaving, the working class begin to take the brunt of the funding obligation. The lower middle class and eventually the middle class are then disincentivized to work, as they recognize that their neighbor gets food, housing, transportation without working.
The wealthy will leave. The middle class will have no incentive to produce. The system will eventually certainly collapse...but there is a lag period where some of the promises of utopia can be achieved. Wealth can be confiscated; debt can be pushed into outbound quarters or years. The phase of worker disincentivization can take a year or two, before the funding outpaces the revenues.
Socialism (communism) can work...for a season. The problem, as articulated by Beta Metani Marashi is that “you can vote yourself into communism, but you have to shoot your way out.”
Expect that the Second Amendment will be obstructed in New York City. New Yorkers appear to be willing to vote themselves into bondage. They, like their British brethren, will have no First or Second Amendment rights to throw off their chains.
Image: Praveenp via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped).
