Why Zohran Mamdani is Wrong for New York City
New Yorkers deserve better
On June 24, 2025, Zohran Mamdani won the Democratic primary for New York City mayor, a move that completely stunned Wall Street and the establishment. Media coverage focuses on whether he’s a “communist” or just a “democratic socialist” - but that debate misses what actually matters: his policy and actions.
None of his ideas are new. New York has already tried most of what Mamdani proposes. The results speak for themselves. Decades of rent control deepened the housing crisis rather than solving it. High tax rates drove businesses away rather than funding city services. This may be well-intentioned, but it does not translate economically.
President Trump calls Mamdani a “communist.” Mamdani denies it, claiming to be a democratic socialist. Actual communists agree with Mamdani - the Revolutionary Communists of America published “Why Communists Can’t Support Zohran Mamdani.”
Meanwhile, Vox calls his agenda “not-so-radical.” The label is irrelevant. Will his policies actually deliver on his promises?
City Groceries and the Information Problem
Take Mamdani’s proposal for city-owned grocery stores in underserved neighborhoods. Modern supermarkets represent what economists call “spontaneous coordination” - millions of people working together without central direction through price signals. Stores stock what sells, cut prices on slow-moving items, and expand popular product lines.
Government stores can’t mimic this. They lack profit and loss feedback. Bureaucrats would decide what to stock based on judgment rather than actual consumer demand.
Private stores that misread demand lose money and adjust accordingly. Government stores request bigger budgets.
The result: resources are not properly allocated, subsidized competition drives out private alternatives, and fiscal burdens fall on all taxpayers.
Rent Control: Good Politics, Bad Economics
The New York Post reports Mamdani “stuck to his socialist guns” on rent control during his meeting with business leaders. Survey data shows 81% of economists oppose rent control. The Cato Institute analyzed Mamdani’s “War on Prices,” warning it would “bring a high efficiency cost” to the city.
Supporters of Mamdani argue that rent control preserves affordability for long-time residents and that policies like fare-free transit, city groceries, and new taxes are necessary corrections to address deep inequality and market failure - not radical experiments. It’s a compelling narrative about protecting vulnerable New Yorkers.
But the evidence tells a different story. Despite decades of rent control, just 1.4% of NYC rentals were vacant in 2025 - including only 0.4% of units under $1,100/month - highlighting deep shortages. While affordable housing construction rose to 27,620 units in 2024, demand vastly outpaced new supply. One-third of renter families live in overcrowded conditions. The fundamental problem: New York added nearly 900,000 new jobs since 2011, but just 350,000 new homes - a 6:1 ratio fueling the current crisis.
Capping rents below market rates discourages new construction. Landlords are incentivized to cut maintenance. The policy creates a tiered system where insiders secure rent-controlled apartments and never leave, while younger people and new arrivals face even higher prices in the remaining market. Median rent in Manhattan passed $5,000/month for the first time in 2025.
Vienna’s experience, often cited by rent control advocates, ignores its own shortcomings. Documented by the Institute of Economic Affairs, it’s really a cautionary tale. Despite housing investment exceeding the entire market value of Austria’s stock exchange, rent control created persistent shortages and degraded quality. New York’s decades of rent control mirror this outcome.
Going a step beyond rent control, Mamdani supports “social housing,” allowing the city to take over properties, removing them from private ownership wholly and entirely eliminating any market feedback on their use.
“Free” Transit and Hidden Costs
Mamdani wants fare-free public transit. But “free” is never truly free. Where do the funds come from? Taxpayers who may never even use the service.
Fares provide crucial information, much like grocery stores and their markets, telling transit authorities which routes and times riders demand most. Free transit removes this information, which in turn encourages overcrowding during peak hours.
Service quality declines, and the entire costs shift to taxpayers. It also makes private alternatives impossible, eliminating innovation and creating a monopoly.
The Taxation Trap
Mamdani referred to capitalism as “a form of theft” and wants to “abolish billionaires.” The Mises Institute addresses this directly: “Taxing ‘the rich’ won’t make life more affordable for ordinary people.”
His backers counter that wealthy New Yorkers rarely relocate purely over taxes, especially if added revenues improve public services and quality of life. This sounds reasonable in theory - but it ignores what actually happened.
High earners and investors fund new businesses and jobs. Punitive tax rates drive wealth and opportunity elsewhere; look at the boon to Florida and Texas. Office vacancies in Brooklyn hit 26% in 2025, putting continued pressure on businesses and office workers alike. Capitalism is the joining of individuals trading resources willingly. This is hardly theft, and an ill-defined definition by self-described Democratic Socialists.
Again, New York has already given this a shot. The result? Businesses relocated, jobs lost, shrunken tax base. When the most productive taxpayers leave, everyone suffers.
The Core Problem: Central Planning Can’t Work
At the heart of Mamdani’s platform lies what economist F.A. Hayek called “the knowledge problem.” No mayor can possess the infinite information needed to centrally plan resource allocation for eight million people. Market prices aggregate this dispersed knowledge with an unseen hand, allowing coordination without central direction.
Mamdani’s platform repeatedly substitutes political judgment for a decentralized process. City groceries replace market-driven retail. Rent control overrides price signals. Free transit eliminates demand information. Each intervention attempts to centrally plan what cannot possibly be accounted for.
What Actually Works
Other countries prove that limited government succeeds. Switzerland maintains a constitutional “debt brake” which requires balanced budgets, and it ranks among the world’s most prosperous nations.
Estonia, after decades under Soviet control, embraced economic liberalization with low flat taxes and minimal bureaucracy - and today scores higher than the United States on global freedom indexes.
CNN reported “prominent Democrats have been squirming” since Mamdani’s primary victory, and Le Monde notes he doesn’t “enjoy unanimous support within his own party.” This bipartisan concern matters. At the heart of the matter, Democrats know Mamdani’s future is NYC’s future.
Bottom Line
Mamdani genuinely wants to help working New Yorkers - a worthy goal everyone shares. But policy outcomes depend on reality, not good intentions.
City groceries would not properly allocate resources without market feedback. Rent control would create even worse housing shortages, as it has for decades in New York and as documented in Vienna. Free transit would diminish service quality by removing demand signals. Punitive taxation would drive away productive activity, as seen when businesses fled to Florida and Texas.
These aren’t ideological or philosophical claims - these are predictions confirmed by historical evidence in the very cities that tried them.
Markets aren’t perfect, but they aggregate dispersed knowledge better than any alternative to date. Central planners seem compassionate, but the plans inevitably produce shortages and disappointment.
The choice is between policies grounded in economic reality versus those rooted in wishful thinking. Mamdani’s platform ignores fundamental economic realities. New Yorkers deserve a new direction - not a revision of a failed past.
References
Economic Analysis:
Cato Institute: “Zohran Mamdani’s ‘War on Prices’” (cato.org/commentary/zohran-mamdanis-war-prices)
Mises Institute: “Rent Control Makes for Good Politics and Bad Economics” (mises.org/mises-wire/rent-control)
Mises Institute: “Tax the Rich? Not a Good Idea” (mises.org/mises-wire/tax-rich)
Institute of Economic Affairs: “Verdict on Rent Control” (iea.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Verdict-on-Rent-Control.pdf)
Institute of Economic and Monetary Studies: “The Miracle of Supermarkets – The Perspective of the Austrian School” (iedm.org/85602-miracle-supermarkets)
New York Housing Conference: “2025 NYC Housing Tracker Report” (thenyhc.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Housing-Tracker-2025.pdf)
Vital City: “New York’s Housing Crisis: Self-Inflicted and Solvable” (vitalcitynyc.org/articles/new-york-housing-crisis)
Hubble HQ: “NYC Office Market Overview: 2025 Trends and Insights” (hubblehq.com/en-us/blog/nyc-office-market)
News Coverage:
CNN Politics: “Do Democrats have a Zohran Mamdani problem?” (cnn.com/2025/08/14/politics/democrats-zohran-mamdani)
New York Post: “Zohran Mamdani sticks to socialist guns, ‘Tax the rich’ plan during meeting with business leaders” (nypost.com/2025/07/15/us-news/zohran-mamdani-sticks-to-socialist-guns)
Vox: “NYC mayoral primary: Zohran Mamdani’s not-so-radical agenda” (vox.com/politics/41862/nyc-mayoral-primary-zohran-mamdani)
Le Monde: “Zohran Mamdani, the ‘socialist’ symbolizing Democratic voters’ revolt” (lemonde.fr/en/international/zohran-mamdani)
Revolutionary Communists of America: “Why Communists Can’t Support Zohran Mamdani” (communistusa.org/why-communists-cant-support-zohran-mamdani)
Fact-Checking:
PolitiFact: “In Context: Zohran Mamdani’s use of phrase ‘seizing the means of production’” (politifact.com/article/2025/jun/zohran-mamdani-seizing-means)