The Case for Zohranomics | The New Yorker

The parts of the supposed threat of socialism or communism are hardly new to American history, so the reaction in certain districts of the alleged victory of Zohran Mamdani, a self-written democratic socialist, in the primary of New York town hall last week was not surprising. Summers, a former secretary of the Treasury during the Clinton administration, who accused Mamdani of defending “Trotskyite economic policies”, which was probably a reference to his calls for rent, free bus journeys, grocery stores managed by the government and higher taxes on millionaires and companies. (Summers also said that Mamdani had shown great ability to learn during the campaign and expressed hope that he would “ensure a good comfort” for believers in the market economy.)

Admittedly, these reactions to what could be called “zohranomics” did not exactly dizzy the supporters of Mamdani, many of whom take criticism from financiers and centrist democrats as confirmation that they are on the right track. The summers “never disappoint, aren’t they?” Isabella Mr. Weber, professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, who signed a public letter approving Mamdani’s campaign proposals, told me during a long conversation last week. Weber got importance during Covid-19 pandemic, when she called for government prices checks and published detailed research on how large companies took advantage of the global emergency to increase their prices and their beneficiary margins. Responding to Summers’s comments, she said that describing Mamdani’s program as Trotskyite was “absurd” and did not tell us “what Mamdani’s agenda tries to attack”.

In the open letter, which The nation Published a few days before the primary, more than two dozen progressive economists from the United States and other countries have described Mamdani’s political platform as “a daring but practical plan to meet some of the most urgent challenges in New York-leading to everyone, the cost of life”. Weber told me that she felt that Mamdani “behaved very well by presenting herself as someone who defends the affordability of life and focuses on what I have called” essential ” – things that people cannot happen: housing, food, transport and child care. If you cannot afford, you are really pushed on the margin of the company. »»

Weber contrasted Mamdani’s proposals with equivocal administration of Joe Biden during the national cost of living crisis that Donald Trump and other Republicans managed to operate in last year’s elections. She told how Biden, in her speech by the Union State in 2024, denounced companies to capitalize over a period of crisis by increasing their prices or reducing the size of their offers, but did not do much. After Kamala Harris replaced Biden on the Democratic ticket, she proposed a federal prohibition of cutters by catering suppliers and grocery stores. But she then brought back the question, Weber recalled: “Based on the pressure of similar neighborhoods which criticized the Mamdani campaign”.

The criticism of Harris’s proposal was that price checks do not work, and the same charge is launched during Mamdani’s call for rent freeze on approximately one million apartments stabilized in the rent. (The frost would not apply to millions of apartments at the city’s market rate.) In a controversial column that favored Andrew Cuomo on Mamdani but targeted the two, the New York Times“The editorial committee said that a freeze” could restrict the housing offer and make more difficult for young New Yorkers and new arrivals to afford housing. ” The argument is that, if the owners and the developers see a freeze of the rent, they would be dissuaded from investing in new affordable housing. When I put this point in Weber, she said that it was important to realize that Mamdani’s call to a rent of rents is accompanied by a commitment to build two hundred thousand units stabilized over the next ten years; Its campaign plans to carry out it by expanding public investments, by modifying zoning laws and accelerating the approvals of planning. “If you are only a rent freeze without making sure you are also building, I don’t think it’s a great idea,” said Weber. “Given the severity of the affordability crisis in New York, the combination of a freeze and an aggressive construction of affordable housing is a good idea.”

Creating more affordable housing is hardly a new radical objective of the mayor, of course. In 2014, at the start of his eight -year term, Bill de Blasio also unveiled a plan to build or preserve two hundred thousand affordable apartments and, in 2021, his administration announced that it had achieved this objective. We can say that the most successful expansion of the city’s affordable housing stock came with the construction of public housing projects, which started during the Great Depression under the direction of Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, which created the New York City Housing Authority (Nycha), and continued in the post-war decades. Subsequently, federal funding was dried up and social housing was associated with crime and other problems. In recent decades, New York mayors have built affordable housing mainly through public-private partnerships, in which developers for lucrative and non-profit purposes receive tax alternatives and other forms of support for the establishment of buildings that are managed in private. The Mamdani website indicates that it will “go” to public housing, double the city’s investment in “major renovations of Nycha housing” and use Nycha-How of land, such as car parks, as more affordable housing sites – a proposal that Blasio has also defended.

It seems reasonable and late, but the shortage of housing in front of the city is great: some recent studies say that it must build up to half a million new houses. Mamdani has focused less on encouraging development of the market rate. He gave a few lead nurses to the “abundance” wing of the Democratic Party, as undertake to eliminate parking minimums and encourage development in metro stations and other transport centers. But the main objective of its plan is to “release the public sector to build housing for the many”.

Another goal is to provide city residents with cheap and healthy food. The Mamdani campaign indicates that its new grocery stores would operate in buildings belonging to the city in low -income areas that currently lack adequate options, which calls food deserts. He continued: “Without having to pay rent or property taxes, they will reduce the general costs and reduce savings to buyers.” Before moving to Massachusetts, Weber once lived in the Sunset Park district of Brooklyn, where she sometimes had trouble buying healthy foods. “The price dimension” – of Mamdani’s proposal – “is important, but the other is the accessibility of nutritious foods,” she said.

It is important to note, as some media accounts have not done so, that Mamdani offers a pilot scheme of only five new stores – one in each district. In a metropolis with more than fifteen thousand private supermarkets and grocery points, it looks like a small beer. Nevertheless, Weber said that experience could be precious. If he has succeeded, he could be extended, she noted, and ultimately, this could encourage more competitive prices in private stores: “If you have an alternative which is reliably and does not take advantage of opportunities to increase prices when they occur, which can change the price dynamics for whole sectors.

In the minds of many people, the term “public option” is associated with health care. But public transport is also a public option, and, as Weber stressed, the proposal to make free bus journeys is part of Mamdani on basic needs. “The affordable transport options are essential for your basic material well-being, to access a job, to earn money and to earn a living,” she said. Some progressive thinkers and groups have extended the concept of public option to other areas, including communications, financial services and food retail. In a recent article which cited Mamdani’s proposal on grocery stores, Becky Chao, director of policies and research on the economic security project, wrote: “Public options show what is possible when governments meet the needs of local communities and create real alternatives for their constituents, when we reconcile with the power to build electricity for the power of electricity. Of course, public options will only succeed if they deliver what they promise. For example, there is no guarantee that grocery stores managed by the city could provide cheaper and more nutritious foods. “This is why you need a pilot,” said Weber. “To see if you can remove it.”