By Michael Chapman, CATO Institute
Zohran Mamdani could well win the upcoming New York City mayoral race; the voters will decide that today. Yet if his “democratic socialist” platform is implemented, the consequences for residents—economic and social alike—will be disastrous. As Ludwig von Mises might remind us, democratic socialism is still socialism, and “it doesn’t work.”
The Nature of Democratic Socialism
Libertarian economists have long explained that democratic socialism does not involve outright government seizure of the means of production. Rather, it manifests through layers of government interference in the private sector—via regulations, taxes, mandates, and bureaucratic controls. Each intervention distorts market processes, producing inefficiencies and crises that, in turn, invite yet more intervention. The cycle repeats, expanding state power and eroding prosperity.
A contemporary example can be seen in the Democrats’ push to extend Obamacare subsidies, which are set to expire at year’s end. These subsidies were meant to stabilize insurance markets, yet their expiration will drive premiums upward. The government created this instability by intervening in healthcare and now seeks to intervene again—at an estimated cost of $415 billion over ten years—to “fix” the problem it caused.
This incremental approach is socialism by installments: policy by policy, the private market is replaced with a government-run one. Mamdani’s proposals fit within this framework…