The news has been abuzz about newly elected NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani. He proudly ran as a democratic socialist and found support from kindred spirits like Bernie Sanders, who performed his swearing-in ceremony, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC). Mamdani indeed ran an impressive campaign, knocking on doors, serving lunch at soup kitchens, and charming voters with his savvy social media outreach. To younger voters who overwhelmingly elected him, he seems like a breath of fresh air amid the gerontocracy in American politics.
In his inaugural address, Mamdani urged New Yorkers to “embrace the warmth of collectivism.” Here is the extended quote, which illustrates his vision:
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…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. If our campaign demonstrated that the people of New York yearn for solidarity, then let this government foster it.
On paper, his sentiment may sound appealing. Who doesn’t want solidarity, fairness, and affordability? Mamdani pairs this vision with a critique of inequality, including rising daycare costs, a lack of affordable housing, and costly bus fares. These are real challenges. The question is whether collectivism can deliver.
Collectivism emphasizes communal control or ownership of necessary resources. Socialism institutionalizes this through state ownership of the means of production and central allocation of resources. Capitalism, by contrast, relies on the three P’s: private property, prices, profit-and-loss. These are the mechanisms by which markets allocate scarce resources. Property rights provide incentives for prudent investment. Prices guide us by providing information about changing levels of scarcity in a decentralized manner. Profit-and-loss are consumer-driven and thus discipline the owners of capital. Economics, at its core, is the study of how individual human beings make decisions under conditions of scarcity, uncertainty, and complexity. Political rhetoric, no matter how earnest, trendy, or charming, cannot override these fundamental realities. Incentives matter and are determined by the economic system we choose.
Mamdani uses the language of collectivism to appeal to our notions of justice and fairness. He critiques the political privilege enjoyed by the wealthy and the rising cost of living. The challenge, however, lies in distinguishing policies that alleviate these problems from those that merely shift costs, generate pernicious unintended consequences, and entrench new forms of privilege. His version of collectivism focuses on taxing the wealthy to redistribute benefits to others. He sees the market economy as a zero-sum game and blames the rich, whom he deems greedy, for the astronomical costs of city life. Hence his disdain for “rugged individualism.”
It is easy to see how this might resonate with young people facing prohibitive costs as they try to cut their teeth in the city. New York City is second only to Hawaii in cost of living. Moreover, it scores last in economic freedom of the 50 states. This miserable ranking is the result of high taxes, bloated government spending and debt, burdensome labor and business regulations, and crippling zoning and land-use laws.
Housing provides an example. Rent-control and rent-stabilization laws have created 50,000 “ghost apartments”—vacant units in which renovations languish. Mamdani calls the landlords abusive and exploiters who refuse to fix the apartments they own and is calling for “rental ripoff hearings” as if somehow this will solve the problem. He seems blithely ignorant of the regulatory framework that is the cause of the dilapidated and vacant apartments. It also raises a fundamental question about incentives, forcing the question of why landlords would let units sit vacant and deteriorate if they could otherwise rent them to earn a profit. Are these landlords uniquely stupid as well as evil? The answer, of course, is no.
Unless Mamdani focuses on increasing housing supply, New Yorkers will not see any improvement in housing affordability. To be fair, he has taken steps to ease the burden of construction permits and regulatory barriers that make it difficult to build in New York. Despite this glimmer of hope, his appointment of Cea Weaver aligns with his collectivist agenda. She argues that home ownership is a “weapon of white supremacy” and that property has too long been treated as an individual good and not a collective good. It seems like collectivism all the way down.
Yet markets through private property mitigate our greedy impulses. In his seminal work, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith explained how markets channel self-interest into widespread economic benefit. Remarkably, 2026 marks the 250th anniversary of Smith’s book and the Declaration of Independence, a timely reminder that the American founders recognized the critical link between private property, individual freedom, and the prosperity of a commercial republic. As Smith scholar Erik Matson notes, these principles reflect a long-standing American moral sensibility that holds that “liberty and the economic freedom it entails serve the common good.”
We can’t appeal to landlords’ altruism for housing, to doctors’ dedication for universal healthcare, or to Uber drivers’ circadian rhythms for free transportation. Nor can we force property owners to give us things for nothing if we have any hope of increasing abundance and lowering costs. But regulatory reform is boring and the greed narrative sells, so in the case of the NYC mayoralty race, the resentment narrative worked. New Yorkers, knowingly or not, just voted for more of the same. We should, however, know better. The economic consequences of collectivism are not speculative; they have been repeatedly examined and empirically tested. Failure is a feature, not a bug.
It seems odd to describe collectivism as warm if you know even a little history. Dominic Pino calls it a “hilariously bad metaphor.” The Soviet Union, the longest social experiment with collectivism, used a centralized heating system. Vast underground pipes delivered heat to buildings, homes, and apartments. It was known as the District Heating System, a name that sounds like it was ripped from the pages of The Hunger Games. There were no individual thermostats. Central planning via bureaucrats delivered predetermined amounts of heat, subsidized by Moscow. Some apartments were too hot; most were too cold. No one got what they wanted because individuals were not allowed to control the temperature in their own homes or bear the associated costs. Instead, arbitrary and capricious administrative decisions prevailed.
The L.A. Times reported that, as a result, the Moscow heating system annually consumed more natural gas than all of France. So not only did people not get what they wanted, but there was rampant waste. As the name implies, collectivism requires the revocation of private property. This also means that we can no longer use market prices to guide us, so we must appoint bureaucrats to make these decisions on our behalf. What could go wrong? As it turns out, everything. Polish economist Oskar Lange, a defender of socialism, even warned that its real danger lay in the bureaucratization of ordinary life. Collectivism is so warm, you’ll need extra blankets, but you’ll have to ask the Blanket and Heating Czar for permission. Make sure you ask nicely. Moreover, collectivism thrives on surveillance, breeds suspicion, kills incentives to create value, and turns neighbors into threats, whereas commercial society, by contrast, offers a far more genuine warmth.
You might say, “But Toto, we aren’t in Leningrad anymore.” True enough. But consider the contemporary examples of North and South Korea. Look at this photo of the Korean peninsula at night. After the sun sets, North Koreans, living under a collectivist system, have no access to light. A candle, a match, and a government-approved book are all they have; it doesn’t sound very warm. By contrast, in the South you can read a bestseller on your Kindle at 2 a.m., under the covers, without a second thought.
Abundance allows us to ignore the complex process by which we acquire goods and services, breeding ignorance of the economic realities that shape our world. This is why politicians like Mamdani resonate and why socialist ideas are increasingly popular.
We can attempt to intervene in markets or even abandon them altogether, but such efforts consistently fail. Granted, the invisible hand of the market is scary. Rugged individualism may sound frigid, yet it is anything but. The phrase implies that we are siloed, atomistic actors who are ruthlessly utilitarian without a thought for our neighbor. A better description of the human condition that markets rely upon is our interdependence. We have innate dignity because we are created as unique individuals. We make individual choices, yet we desperately need each other, and market economies do a better job of aligning our interests. Still, we often long for visible hands. We like to believe that wise and benevolent actors are consciously directing outcomes for the common good.
With these dynamics in mind, the political narrative in New York is especially misleading. That said, voters were presented with collectivism as a way out of their financial problems and a means to settle the score with the wealthy. The affordability crisis is real, but collectivism is not, and never has been, a workable solution. The worst-case scenario is that New Yorkers plunge into greater debt, the housing shortage is exacerbated, and “free buses” become rolling shelters. The last thing anyone wants is a return to the New York City of the 1970s.
Moreover, there is no such thing as democratic collectivism. Collectivism inevitably expands bureaucracy and centralizes control, which requires force. Should we hope it “succeeds” so New Yorkers experience the predictable consequences of their political choices? Perhaps, but that comes at a great cost borne by individuals and businesses that are taxed more and offered less, potentially driving them out of the city altogether.
Should we instead hope this is all a big failure and that Mamdani turns to a more traditional progressive approach, something that we may disagree with on economic grounds but that New York has long adopted? Even that carries risk, as proponents of collectivism will claim vindication and demand greater power: Give us more authority and another chance, and this time it will be different.
What we really need is more opportunities and the removal of artificial barriers to growth and prosperity. As Thomas Sowell reminds us, there are no solutions, only trade-offs, and the goal is to deal with man’s flaws and get the best trade-off we can. Politicians routinely disabuse themselves of economic realities because those realities constrain their utopian fantasies. Collectivism promises warmth, but in practice it reduces abundance, limits opportunity, and curtails human flourishing, delivering the opposite of what it claims to deliver. So bundle up.
