This article was originally published by William L. Anderson at The Mises Institute. 

As he placed his hand on the Koran, Zohran Mamdani was sworn in as the new mayor of New York City on a cold New Year’s Day, promising that “I was elected as a Democratic socialist and I will govern as a Democratic socialist. I will not abandon my principles for fear of being deemed radical.”

Indeed, his inaugural speech was full of the radical proposals that marked his campaign, as he promised. His administration, he declared, would make life better for New Yorkers:

And if for too long these communities have existed as distinct from one another, we will draw this city closer together. We will replace the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.

As I read those words, my mind traveled to the freezing gulags in Siberia where the man idolized by the intellectual forebears of Mamdani supporters, Josef Stalin, sent innocent people to let them feel the full “warmth of collectivism,” working until they died under the ideology of collectivism Mamdani now embraces, along with his followers. However, as his non-VIP supporters quickly found out, the “warmth” of collectivism didn’t apply to the disastrous “block party” celebration after the inauguration:

Around 10,000 supporters stood outside City Hall during the event — billed as an “Inauguration for a New Era Block Party” by Mamdani’s staff — crammed into several barricaded pens without access to bathrooms or any food concession stands.

Socialism apparently didn’t include free food, but Mamdani did promise a lot of “free” things to New Yorkers – to be paid by other New Yorkers, of course:

The cost of childcare will no longer discourage young adults from starting a family—because we will deliver universal childcare for the many by taxing the wealthiest few.

Those in rent-stabilized homes will no longer dread the latest rent hike—because we will freeze the rent.

Getting on a bus without worrying about a fare hike or whether you’ll be late to your destination will no longer be deemed a small miracle—because we will make buses fast and free.

These policies are not simply about the costs we make free, but the lives we fill with freedom. For too long in our city, freedom has belonged only to those who can afford to buy it. Our City Hall will change that.

He then added what might be the most ironic thing he said all day:

These promises carried our movement to City Hall, and they will carry us from the rallying cries of a campaign to the realities of a new era in politics.

Indeed, it is the ultimate irony to claim that politics can trump reality, for that is what he has done. When we wipe aside all the ideology that so-called democratic socialists shovel out, it always comes down to their candidates promising lots of free stuff, with all that stuff being paid for by others. Although Mamdani seemed confident that the “wealthiest few” will stick around to finance his campaign promises, that is unlikely, as one doubts that there will be enough new money to confiscate from “the wealthiest few” to produce the billions of new tax dollars needed for Mamdani to provide “free” goodies to his constituents.

Demonizing but also inadvertently praising capitalism

In calling for government to provide better services, Mamdani also admitted that private enterprise often outshines socialism, saying:

For too long, we have turned to the private sector for greatness, while accepting mediocrity from those who serve the public. I cannot blame anyone who has come to question the role of government, whose faith in democracy has been eroded by decades of apathy. We will restore that trust by walking a different path—one where government is no longer solely the final recourse for those struggling, one where excellence is no longer the exception.

We expect greatness from the cooks wielding a thousand spices, from those who stride out onto Broadway stages, from our starting point guard at Madison Square Garden. Let us demand the same from those who work in government. In a city where the mere names of our streets are associated with the innovation of the industries that call them home, we will make the words ‘City Hall’ synonymous with both resolve and results.

Anyone who has dealt with government services in New York knows that “demanding” excellence from unionized city workers is the impossible dream. There are few more privileged people on the planet than the members of New York City municipal unions, and the notion that they and their union bosses would see themselves as anything but the city’s masters is laughable. And under Mamdani – who owes his job to those unions – this situation will only grow worse.

As Gregory Bresiger noted in a recent article, Mamdani held his inauguration at the site of the now-abandoned subway station at City Hall, a station that was first constructed in 1904 by private investors who created a subway system that at the time was one of the wonders of the world. Of course, in 1940, the city took over the subway system because private enterprise had failed. However, as Bresiger notes, the city government forced the Interborough Rapid Transit Company, which owned the subways, to keep its fare at the original price, five cents. As Henry Hazlitt wrote:

New York City’s first subway opened in 1904. The fare was 5 cents. The subways remained under private ownership until 1940. The fare was still 5 cents. But meanwhile wholesale prices had gone up 32 per cent; wage rates had tripled; the lines were granted tax exemption by the city. They petitioned for higher fares. But the 5-cent fare was sacred. The city fathers decided that the only way to keep it was to eliminate private profit and run the trains themselves.

Of course, as Hazlitt points out, once it took ownership, the city raised its fares on numerous occasions but still ran large deficits which have continued throughout the era of government ownership. The subway system still uses 100-year-old hand switches and other relics of bygone eras that other metro systems around the world have abandoned for modern, computerized equipment. The New York Times reports:

Most of the subway system still uses ancient signal technology. The equipment has to be manually operated, around the clock, from a network of underground control towers.

(New York City still owns the subway, but it is run by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which is under the control of the governor of New York State. No matter what, the subways are undercapitalized and in poor repair and will remain so under the Mamdani administration.)

Although Mamdani did point out government failures, one doubts that city services will improve under his regime, his rhetoric to the contrary. Like all socialists, he seeks to demonize private business owners and especially private landlords, as he owes his office to the left-wing activists who serve as regulators in the housing and business markets, who (Mamdani among them, according to his own previous statements) believe in the abolition of private property and especially private housing.

Conclusion

Like previous mayor Bill de Blasio, who also believed that government should own – or at least control – all property, Mamdani will do what all socialists do: continue to destroy what is left of the city’s capital base, tax private enterprise to death, waste taxpayer money, and blame capitalism for all of their failures.

Unlike Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, both of whom serve in Congress and do not have to bear the costs of bad decisions made under socialism (all the while receiving adoring media coverage), Zohran Mamdani will have to govern, and his platform cannot help but fail. At some point in office, after the political euphoria has passed, it will become obvious that a cornucopia of freebies is not in the future of New York voters who have believed that this time the socialists will take care of them.

In the end, economics reflects real things, and New Yorkers will find out once again that prices are not lists of arbitrary numbers, but rather part of the real economy. While Mamdani and his political allies will live in relative comfort, their expenses borne by ordinary taxpayers, those supporters who counted on Mamdani’s political manipulations to help them get ahead will find, once again, they have been conned.