“New York is too expensive. Zohran will lower costs and make life easier.” That’s the soft sell on Zohran Mamdani‘s campaign website, a pitch tailored to a generation priced out of the American dream.
Mamdani remains the front-runner in the race to become New York City‘s next mayor. And while his campaign is centered on inequality, solving it is not the end goal of the individual who says he has “many critiques of capitalism.” That end goal, in Mamdani’s words, includes “seizing the means of production” — the lodestar of true socialists.
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In generations past, this ideology was anathema in America. But today’s youth are increasingly enamored by socialism. One recent survey found that 62% of Americans ages 18 to 29 view it favorably. That’s a cultural undertow, not a ripple.
Should Americans worry about a socialist rising to power in the nation’s financial capital? To calm fears, his campaign now insists, “There is nothing in his platform or in his record regarding seizing the means of production.” But when candidates tell you who they are and what they’re fighting for, you should believe them.
Of course, nothing in Cambodian dictator Pol Pot’s platform foretold emptying cities, herding families into forced-labor cooperatives, and executing “class enemies” — yet that’s what followed, costing well over a million lives. Nor did Cuban leader Fidel Castro’s platform advertise revolutionary tribunals, firing squads, and a vast array of political prisons — yet that, too, is the historical record.
These outcomes come later after voters hand over the reins of power. Socialist movements rarely lead with their endgame. They channel economic frustration and promise fairness and a better future while shifting the Overton window to make radical proposals seem reasonable.
Like his predecessors, Mamdani draws attention here. He highlights real pain that is affecting most Americans: a widening wealth gap, wages that lag housing costs, and grocery prices that keep climbing.
And true to form, he is quick to offer seemingly simple solutions — rent freezes, new public housing, even city-run grocery stores — arguing that if the city steps in as a provider, prices will fall. Many young voters, drowning in debt, hear a lifeline.
But even a correct diagnosis can come with a disastrous prescription.
Start with those government-run grocery stores. Cuba has rationed food for decades and is now shrinking even the subsidized daily bread allotment as shortages worsen — another reminder that removing profit signals doesn’t conjure supply. Venezuela’s price-control “fixes” produced what price controls always do: scarcity, long lines, and politicized distribution. These cases are inevitable when political socialists impose their flawed economic ideas on a nation.
Yes, the pain is real, but a surface-level diagnosis obscures the root causes. We have to look beyond pointing at high prices, wealthy individuals, and struggling households.
The root causes include inflation fueled by the creation of trillions of new dollars out of thin air, restrictive zoning that blocks new housing from being built, corporate welfare and industry subsidies that favor politically connected incumbents at the expense of small business owners, and labor rules that limit competition and raise costs.
Socialism’s appeal grows when voters lack basic economic literacy. People who don’t understand the causes of their pain are more likely to embrace seductive, but destructive, prescriptions that falsely promise to cure it.
I understand why Mamdani’s message resonates. After a school event last year, a teenager told me, “If the city owned the grocery stores, they’d make food cheaper.” So on a chalkboard, we walked through a grocery store’s basic budget: cost of goods, payroll, spoilage, logistics, and the capital cost of building stores. I then pulled out my phone to find the statistic that drove home my point: grocery stores operate with a razor-thin 1.6% profit margin.
By the end, the teenager’s face had that look every teacher lives for: the moment when a simplistic narrative collides with reality. The problem wasn’t his compassion. It was that no one had ever shown him how prices emerge, why profit matters to quality and availability, or how “public options” often become political monopolies.
That’s the heart of the challenge. Mamandi’s surge in popularity doesn’t mean socialism works or that the end results would differ from past failed experiments. Rather, it’s a reflection of rampant civic and economic illiteracy. If a majority of the rising generation hears “socialism” and thinks “fairness,” that’s a parental problem. We can fix it.
The most effective approach is for parents to introduce these ideas early. Read and discuss children’s books that explain how markets work and why socialism always fails, using historical examples. Ask your children how a grocery shelf gets filled, what happens when a price is capped, and who decides where resources go when profit and loss are replaced by politics.
Second, let your children meet the market in concrete ways — run a lemonade stand or launch a small venture at a local Children’s Entrepreneur Market. Give them hands-on experience setting prices, tracking costs, and serving customers — the basics of creating value and solving problems. Nothing dispels economic myths faster than firsthand profit and loss. After that first sale, utopian promises lose their shine.
Third, demand the right reforms. Call out corporate welfare with the same energy you reserve for progressive excess: end subsidies and bailouts, unwind favoritism, and legalize competition in housing, transit, and occupations so supply can meet demand. Monetary sobriety plus pro-competition policy beats command and control every time.
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Mamdani’s promises are seductive because the pain is real. But a city can’t redistribute its way to abundance, and a generation can’t vote itself prosperity by empowering the same political machine that inflated costs and protected insiders.
New York may be the stage today, but the audience is national. The rest of America should not let the country’s flagship city beta test socialism for everyone else. The better project is older and humbler: teach first principles at home, reject bad premises at the ballot box, and choose policies that let free people solve hard problems.
Connor Boyack is president of Libertas Network and a bestselling author of the Tuttle Twins children’s books.