Venezuela in Manhattan? Mamdani’s Vision Will Be a Nightmare

Originally published by the Washington Examiner

New York City mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has recently argued that the city should become a model “post-capitalist” metropolis — a city that rejects private property structures, redistributes wealth on a systemic scale, and re-engineers civic life around state-managed equity. It is classic Marxist socialism. It is a seductive idea for activists and academics. But we have seen versions of this experiment before in the Western Hemisphere.

We have seen it in Venezuela. We have seen it in Cuba. And we have seen the results: collapse, dependency, and political repression packaged in the language of “justice.” Socialism never results in more freedom or peace.

What is missed in this romanticization is the simple, unforgiving reality: when socialist systems appear to function, it is both short-lived and dependent on external subsidy. Every seemingly successful socialist experiment — from Havana to Caracas to now a Mamdani-led New York City — has depended on the resources of systems more productive than itself. When that subsidy ends, the collapse begins. No economic system is impervious to turbulence. But when it happens in a free market, capitalist economy, people retain their fundamental rights, the recovery is far quicker, and the dip is less abusive to citizens.

New York City is no exception.

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